A New Life
by KayBeth13
Summary: 15 years ago, Relena was assasinated. 8 years later, disaster struck again. Heero was attacked and left in a ditch to die. Their Daughter, Jo was abandoned at an orphanage by the killers. Is everything truely as it seems? Or is someone hiding something?
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam wing, but I do own Jo and any other characters that are not in the anime or mangas. Please feel free to review, flames are not welcome, but constructive criticism is. Please be nice to me!!

As the town clock struck midnight, a chill swept through the streets of leaville. The sky was clear, the moon was full and the wind was bitter. On 5th street, a girl, no older than 18 wrapped her jacket tightly around her as she walked around the unfamiliar surroundings.

She had only arrived in town that day and the reason she had come was to find a man who could help her unveil the mysteries of her past. All the girl could remember was that her name was Jo. Something had happened to her as a child to make her forget all of her memories, but nothing she did could make her remember. It was like someone had put the memories in a box and locked it with a thousand different locks.

All she knew was that one day, she woke up to find herself inside an orphanage, and stayed there for seven years, until a week ago, when a strange Chinese man told her that to find her past she needed to find a man called Quatre Barton that lived in a town called Leaville, so the following day, she packed her bags and after sharing a few tearful farewells with the younger children and the owners of the orphanage, set out on her long, and hopefully successful, journey.

Right now however, she had finally arrived at her destination and was now trying to find a hotel or youth hostel that she could stay in, but so far, hadn't had any luck. She decided that she would go and try another part of the town, and turned to go down the alleyway she had just noticed ahead of her. As she started down the alley, she could sense that something wasn't quite right and that something bad was going to happen. Most people wouldn't have gone down the alley to begin with, but not Jo. No, she just shrugged off the feeling and carried on anyway.

'I've always been a courageous girl and nothing's ever made me nervous before, so why start now? She wondered to herself. 'Plus, I have 5 years of tae kwon do under my belt, so if anyone was to try anything…'

She finished her sentence by raising her leg high above her head, then tilting her heel upwards before crashing her leg back down in a swift dropkick, earning her a surprised glance from the man who was walking past her on the opposite side of the road. She quickly grinned at him and absentmindedly saluted to him, then started walking down the alley, unaware of the danger that faced her.

About two minutes later, Jo was growing frustrated.

"man, how long IS this alley anyway?!" she growled, then froze as she heard a raspy snigger from behind her.

She swore under her breath as she realised that she had stumbled on a group of 5 men, all obviously drunk, and there was a distinct smell of drugs wafting around them too. One of them, jo assumed to be the leader, came swaggering up to her, and the others all wolf-whistled at her.

She rolled her eyes, but then nearly gagged as the man lowered himself so that his face was level to hers, and the overpowering smell of alcohol, drugs and bad breath filled her nostrils. The man yelled over his shoulder to the others.

"looks like we've got fresh blood here, guys!"

The others cheered and formed a circle around her, ensuring in the process they were in such a formation it meant she could not escape, no matter how much she wanted to.

Jo didn't like the looks on their faces or their actions one bit, and tensed up, very slightly altering her stance so that she could fight them if it was needed. The leader suddenly reached out and grabbed Jo, not realising that he had made a grave mistake that was going to cost him dearly. With as much power as she could muster, which was a surprisingly large amount for her age and size, swung her arm round and punched him in the jaw, then swiftly executed the perfect dropkick on his head as he stumbled back, knocking him out cold.

As soon as the other men noticed their leader lying on the floor groaning in pain, they immediately sprung into action.

"you're gonna regret doin' that to Sam" a blonde one growled.

She slowly turned her head to look at him with a scathing look.

"what're you going to do about it blondey?"

He threw himself at her, trying to hit her. She deftly avoided all of his attacks and eventually grew bored, so turned and kicked him in the stomach, sending him crashing into the wall behind him. He stood up, and this time all of the group rounded on her. Her eyes widened slightly and she stepped back, but one of them blocked her exit.

"oh shit" she whispered.

Next thing she knew, she was lying on the floor, with four men hitting her in any part of the body they could reach. The only part undamaged was her face, but that was only due to the fact she was able to cover it. She began to moan quietly, and the blonde guy was just about to kick her head, when a hand on his shoulder stopped him. Same had managed to pick himself up off the floor, and now, he wanted revenge. As far as he was concerned, NOBOBDY, made a fool of him in front of his gang, especially not a kid.

He waited until the rest of the group had vanished down the alley, then lifter the teen up by her hair and threw her against the wall. She looked up at him with pain filled eyes, then gathered all of her remaining strength and kneed him in the groin. He managed to stop himself from falling on the floor in pain, but not before yelling in pain.

He grabbed Jo and looked her in the eye. She was knew she wasn't able to fight back this time. She's just used up her remaining strength and energy and knew she wouldn't be able to do anything in the state she was in. Just as Sam was about to deliver the final blow that would end her life, a black object landed in between them, forcing Sam off her and causing her to fall heavily onto the ground with a yelp of pain.

The object, revealed to be a person wearing a black trench coat, black jeans and a black scarf was blocking their face from view, making it impossible to tell if it was a male or female. Sam glared at the stranger.

"look pal, you'd better keep walkin if ya know what's good for ya!" he threatened.

The stranger gave a short sharp laugh, and jo realised it was a man that was helping her.

The stranger pulled his scarf off from around his face, and looked hard at sam, who paled.

"oh my god! Y…y…you're…"

"oh, yeah, I am. Now I believe you were about to leave?" he hissed, and stepped forward.

Sam yelled, and ran away as fast as he could. The stranger turned to look at Jo, and the first thing she noticed was how deep a blue his eyes were. She then noticed he had a braid. Before she could say anything, the man helped her up.

Only problem was, Jo had suffered more damage than she though. With a scream and a flash of pain, her vision blurred and suddenly went black as she passed out with pain.


	2. Painful Memories

Duo Maxwell looked up at the clock.

"Quarter to midnight already?" he said to himself.

At that moment, a slim redheaded woman slid into the office and put a pile of papers on his desk, with a small thump.

"well, that's all my paperwork done for the next two weeks" she said happily. "now, I just need to go and pick up the kids for our holiday"

Duo looked up at her and smiled gently.

"thanks. Have a great holiday, ok Jayne?"

Jayne grinned and with a quick wave, disappeared out of the door. A few seconds later the sound of the main door clicking shut filtered into the office and Duo sighed. He silently began packing his bag so that he could finally go home, and his eyes hovered onto his desk, stopping shortly to look at the photos there.

The first photo always bought a smile to his face. It was a picture of his wife, son and daughter. His son was sitting on the floor, with his sister climbing on his back, and his wife hilde was crouching next to them, laughing. Duo remembered the day the photo was taken. It was his son daemon's (Hilde chose the name as it made her think of duo. She promised duo he could choose their next child name) thirteenth birthday. Daemon had just opened a present, and his daughter Helen (named after sister Helen) wanted to see it, and climbed up his back to see better.

Duo shook his head in silent laughter. He couldn't believe that the photo was now four years old and his son was now a seventeen year old young man, and his daughter was six. He took his eyes away from the photo and they fell onto the one next to it, the one that always made his heart ache and tears to fill his eyes.

Heero Yuy and Relena Peacecraft-Yuy. After three years of peace after the war, Duo had finally persuaded nineteen year-old heero to take the plunge and ask relena. Of course, relena said yes, and three years after that, they were married with a daughter: Joanne. In the photo, relena and heero were both sitting down, Heero with a one year old Joanne perched on his lap, which was no surprise. Heero and Joanne had always been inseparable. She was a real daddy's girl, probably still would be if things hadn't gone the way they had.

_When Joanne was two, Relena and Heero had taken her to London with them. Relena had to give a speech, and as heero was her bodyguard, it meant leaving Joanne behind, but neither of them had the heart to do it, so the small child went with them. The speech went well, until the very end. As relena stepped off the podium and took her daughter off her collegue, a gunshot rang out, and relena fell forward. She was rushed to hospital, but died shortly after arrival. Relena peacecraf-yuy was assassinated aged 24. _

_Heero threw himself into his work after that, never staying home long enough to see his daughter for longer than a day or two at a time. Joanne didn't understand what was going on until a few years later, when Duo decided to tell her, and be the one to comfort her when she broke down. Heero had walked in shortly later, while the ten year old was crying, and as soon as she saw him, she jumped off Duo's lap and blamed him for her mother dying. The look on heero's face said more than a thousand words ever could, and it broke duo's heart to see it. Realising her father wasn't going to respond, the girl ran out of the room, sobbing._

_Duo watched her go, then looked over at heero. Heero looked down at the floor, then his eyes pulled tight in a frown, and he turned to follow his daughter._

"_be gentle, heero, she's hurting" was all duo said._

_Heero nodded his gratitude and closed the door softly behind him. Duo could hear the father and daughter talking, but suddenly, heero yelled and there was a loud crash, followed by the sound of Joanne screaming. Duo ran into the room to have Joanne being thrown to him and heero jumping out of the window, gun in hand, yelling for his best friend to look after her._

_Joanne clung to him in fear, and as he looked down at her, he saw a trail of blood trickle down her back. He pulled her hair back and saw a small but deep cut on the nape of her neck. He winced slightly, as he could tell it hurt her, and gently cradled her. They both looked at each other as they heard heero shouting and they crept over to the window. As they looked out, they saw heero run round a corner, and a gunshot rang out, followed by a spray of blood that hit the wall. Joanne screamed and tried to get to heero, but duo pulled her back. Heero stumbled round the corner and duo saw they he was the one that had been shot. Seeing a group of four thugs follow him, duo ordered Joanne to hide, and jumped out of the window to help._

_He was too late. As he reached the group, heero was already on the floor, being kicked, punched and one man stabbed him in the arm. Duo launched himself on the man with the knife and pulled him down, yelling for heero to run. Heero managed to crawl round the corner, only to be faced with what could only be the leader. Duo found himself being held back as the leader pulled out a gun and shot heero twice, once in the chest, once in the stomach. _

"_NOOOOOOOOOOO!" duo screamed, but in the back of his mind, he heard Joanne scream too. 'no no no no no no no no' he panicked. The last thing the girl needed was to see her dad being murdered._

_Yet another thug came into duo's view, holding a wriggling Joanne in his arm. She kicked him hard enough to make him let go, and she ran over to Heero as fast as she could. She threw herself on him begging him to wake up. Heero opened his eyes and smiled at his little girl. He said something to her that only she heard, then cupped her face in his hand, neither caring that he had blood all over it that was now on Joannes face. His hand gently lowered as he passed out and Joanne found herself being picked up once again. Duo tried to escape and save the three of them, but he found himself feeling a searing pain in the back of his head, and he slumped to the floor, unconscious. _

_As for jo and heero, they were taken by the thugs, only stopping twice. The first time was when they threw Heero in a ditch, leaving him to die, then three days later when the leader saw an orphanage and ordered for the girl to be dumped there. Duo had woken up an hour after the group had left. He tried for years to find his friend and god daughter, but never succeeded. That was seven years ago now. He never saw them again…_

Duo felt something trickle down his face and brushed it away, not surprised when he realised he was crying. He glanced up at the clock again and saw it was now five to midnight. He stepped out of his office, and after making sure Jayne had switched everything off (which unsurprisingly, she had), locked the main building door and set off home. He shivered slightly at how bitterly cold it was, and wrapped his coat tighter round him. As he turned to go down 5th street, he saw a young woman, no older than about nineteen or twenty walk along the other side of the road. Suddenly, she threw her leg in the air and brought it back down in a perfect drop kick. Duo looked at her in surpirise.

The girl must have realised he saw her kick, and turned to look at him briefly and she then grinned at him and mock saluted him, before enetering the alley. Duo grinned to himself. She actually reminded him of heero a bit, especially the colour of her eyes, and the shape of her face…Duo shook his head.

"don't even think it duo, Joanne and Heero are dead" he muttered to himself, before continuing his walk home. He couldn't help but be slightly worried for the girl though. Anyone who lived in Leaville knew not to go down that particular alley, so obviously the girl was new and didn't know.

Quickly making up his mind, duo turned back to the alley and scaled up the wall so that he could easily watch the girl without her thinking that he was a stalker, but jump in and help if she needed it. He saw the group of man at the same time she did, and his body automatically tensed. About the only good thing about being a gundam pilot was that he was prepared for virtually anything that was thrown at him in situations such as this. He watched silently as the girl threw off her attckers one at a time, but as he saw the girl being pinned down and attacked by the leader, he dropped down oin fornt of the girl so that the bloke couldn't reach her.

The leader looked at him and told him to keep on walking but duo just snorted, angering the man even more. Before the guy could even move, duo removed the scarf from his face and freed his braid. The man jumped back in shock as he realised who he was. Duo frowned. He felt as though he'd seen the guy before, but couldn't place him. The man ran off and it suddenly hit duo. He was one of the men who attacked heero that day.

Enraged, duo prepared to hunt the guy down, but a small moan from the girl brought him out of his anger. He crouched down next to her and helped her to stand up, only to have her pass out in his arms. He quickly checked her for major injuries, and after feeling confident she was ok, he scooped her up bridal style and took off down the next road to the hospital that was a few minutes away, hoping the girl would be alright.


	3. Hospitalised

_I know it's a bit rushed at the end and it's slightly shorter than my other pieces but i'm so overloaded with work that it's hard to find time to write- please bear with me!_

_I also have 5 new stories coming soon- 2 gundam wing, 1 tekken, 1 pirates of the caribbean and 1 beyblade story- please check my profile soon as they should be up by next weekend_

Chapter 2

Jo woke up to find herself in an unfamiliar room, that had pale yellow walls and a bright light beaming in her eyes. She closed her eyes as the light stung them and groaned. The faint smell of disinfectant drifted by her and the soft beeps of a heart monitor were heard on the other side of the bed. She gently opened one of her eyes slightly and saw an I.V line in her arm. She closed her eyes and groaned again, she HATED hospitals.

Duo had kept an eye on the strange girl for the past three days that she had been unconscious. Holding a cappuccino in one hand with a paper tucked under his arm, he looked through the window, expecting her to be lying in the same position she'd been in so far, and was pleasantly surprised to see she had moved.

Making sure to keep quiet, he gently opened the door and stepped in. Jo heard him come in but kept her eyes closed. Suddenly his voice came from right next to her ear.

"I see you're awake. Welcome back to the real world, bud"

With a yell, Jo flew up and stared at the man in shock.

"h…h…how did you get here from the door without me hearing?" she yelled.

Duo inwardly grinned. The girl sure had fire. She also had sharp hearing, no normal person would have even heard him come in, he was so quiet. As for Jo, she was watching the man with a thoughtful expression. She thought she recognised his voice from the dream she just had, but couldn't be sure. Then she saw his braid and jumped back, pointing at it.

"you! You're the guy that helped me!" she yelled.

Duo chuckled softly. 'intelligent too' he mused. He looked at the young girl and smiled.

"yep, I helped you." he said bluntly.

She looked at him in confusion.

"but, why would you do that? I mean, I'm just a random person that walked past you."

"exactly. You're a young girl, you're alone, and walking down the most dangerous alley in town. Now, I wasn't about to just walk away and let that happen was I?"

Jo gave him a genuine smile, something she rarely did. Then she realised she was standing up and had reopened a wound on her side and grimaced. She didn't mind being hurt, she just hated having to clean up the blood afterwards. Duo smiled back at her, then he noticed the change of look on her face and looked to the same spot as her. Seeing the blood, he reached over her and pushed the button for the nurse.

While waiting for the nurse to arrive, duo helped her sit back on the bed before sitting in the chair next to it that he had claimed on the first night when he brought her in. he looked at her and she looked back with a questioning look.

"sorry," he said, "but I can't help but think that you look like an old friend of mine. By the way I'm duo Maxwell. What's your name?" he asked her.

A brief flash of sadness flickered over the girl's eyes but it was gone as quickly as it was there making duo wonder if he'd actually seen anything or whether his mind was playing tricks on him. Jo took a deep breathe.

"My name's Jo, short for Joanne, and all I know is that when I was about ten or eleven I was dumped at an orphanage in the city. I don't remember how or why I ended up there, but every now and then I have dreams that instead of seeing what happened, it's like I can hear it. All I can really say about the dreams is that there's a few gunshots."

Duo listened carefully to what she said, and the whole time he was having an inner conflict with his head telling him that this wasn't his goddaughter Jo, but his heart saying it could be. In the end he decided to ignore both. Just as he was about to respond to Jo, a nurse came bustling in.

The nurse asked duo to leave while she did a checkup on Jo and redo the stitches the girl had pulled out. Duo gave jo a brief smile, that she returned before glaring at the needle in the nurses hand, and stepped out of the room. The nurse waited until she was sure that duo was out of earshot before talking to jo.

"so, now that you're awake, let's get acquainted shall we? I'm Lucy. I heard you and mr Maxwell talking so I know you're Jo. Don't worry about your details, I'll make sure to keep them hidden from unwanted attention, ok?" she said, then winked.

It usually took a long time for anyone medical to get through tro jo but she instantly liked Lucy.

Less than a week later, Jo was deemed ready to go home, and from the request of Duo, she had decided to live with him as right now, she knew he was the only trustable person around to her.


	4. Duo's Home

Chapter three

Duo walked into the room to find jo sitting on the bed with the nurse doing a final check on her. He felt extremely tired because he had been up since 3 o'clock that morning so that he could drive up to the orphanage and sort out the paperwork to confirm that he was Jo's new guardian. Jo saw duo and gave him a huge smile. He sent her a quick grin, then started to gather her belongings together and put them in his car.

When he went back into the room, the nurse decided that Jo was ok and she could be discharged. Duo thanked the nurse, then he and Jo walked out of the hospital and got into his car. As they reached Duo's house, jo looked out of the window and a peaceful smile appeared on her face, lighting her Prussian blue eyes up.

The house was simple. It was detached from the other houses, and had white walls. There was a large rose bush climbing up one side of the wall and the window frames were a pale blue, making the house look like something out of a fairy tale. Jo wasn't much for girlie things, but every so often, she realised what it was to appreciate being female. Now was one of them.

She and duo got out of the car and he unlocked the front door and let Jo in. Jo followed him up to the room that he had prepared for her, and she fell in love with it. The walls were a pale purple and the room had a desk, a wardrobe, drawers and a cupboard in it, all of which were white. A cream carpet was on the floor, that looked like it would be heaven to walk on. Duo looked at jo and smiled when he saw her face.

"all this…for me?" she asked.

Duo looked down at her and peered into her eyes.

"yes. If you want to have anything else or if you want to redecorate the room in any way, then just let me know."

Jo shook her head.

"no. it's perfect. I love it."

Jo started unpacking and didn't notice the tears that had formed in duo's eyes.

'Heero and Relena loved it here too'. he thought to himself.

Duo remembered that he needed to do some shopping so he told Jo he was going to the shops and left her to settle in and unpack her belongings.

Jo looked at Duo in surprise, not that he was going to the shops but because he was trusting her when he'd only known her for a few days. Duo shrugged his shoulders and just replied "it can't be that hard to track you if you run now" then left, closing the door behind him.

Jo climbed up the stairs and the first thing she did was take off her shoes and socks and test out the carpet. Just as she'd predicted, the carpet was like heaven to walk on. She could tell it was one of those expensive carpets, shag pile, she'd heard someone call them once. 'Didn't get carpets like this at the orphanage.' She shuddered at the thought of the orphanage carpets. Once cream, now a greasy yellow colour, with all sorts of stains and mars on it. Walking barefoot was almost a taboo there, not that anyone would want to anyway. This carpet though, made Jo wish she could just sink in it forever.

She only had a backpack on her, and she was grateful Sam and his gang hadn't taken it off her, as it held the only clothing and items she had, including the two most prized possessions she owned: a necklace and a blue jacket with faded bloodstains on it. She never knew where they came from but in her heart she was hoping they belonged to her parents or that someone would recognise them and be able to help her remember her past. The items were in the bag sitting on her new bed.

A grin came over her face as she thought of the bed. With a small yell and a leap, she flung herself on it, sending the pillows and bag flying onto the floor. She bounced a couple of times and then sank deeply into the mattress. It wasn't until then that she noticed she also had her own ensuite room.

"man, this is awesome!" she yelled and flopped back, laughing as she went. As with the walls, the bedspread was a pale purple and they were made of a satin material. Jo smiled and stood up again.

After straightening the bed out, she grabbed her bag and pulled out everything: 5 tops, 2 pairs of jeans, 2 hoodies, a pair of combat boots, a book, deodorant, brush, toothbrush, toothpaste and a bunch of hair bands. She also took out the jacket and necklace, putting them in the bottom of the cupboard where she could easily find them yet they would not necessarily be noticed.

Once everything had been unpacked, she put her socks back on and stretched, realising with the dryness of her throat that she needed a drink. She looked around the house until she found the kitchen, then spent a minute hunting out the juice and glasses, eventually succeeding. Once she had her drink, she made her way back out into the hall and began exploring her new home, carrying the glass with her as she went. The first room she entered was obviously the living room. It was a reasonable size, with grey and blue walls and a blue carpet. A large cream corner suite was against the window wall and a large plasma TV was situated on the wall behind the door. There were a couple of photos on the mantelpiece: one was of duo and what could only be his son as they looked so similar, plus duo had told her he had a son. The other photo was of a woman and a little girl, probably his daughter and wife.

There was another photo too, this time of a man, with a young girl on his back. It looked like they were at a theme park, as she could see a rollercoaster in the background. The man was grinning at the camera and the young girl was sticking her tongue out at whoever was taking the picture and grinning too. The pair of them looked so similar, it was frightening. Jo smiled to herself before deciding to look around the rest of the house.

The dining room and bathroom were just basic rooms, with a couple more pictures here and there, including one of duo and the woman he had seen earlier, this time on their wedding day. She made a mental note to ask about her when duo came back. There were only four more rooms left to look in now and they were the study and three other bedrooms. She refused to look in the bedrooms as she saw that as an invasion of privacy, so she decided to look at the study, which was a converted attic.

As soon as she saw it, she fell in love with it. The walls were a sky blue, and a silvery coloured carpet was on the floor. This isn't what made her fall in love with it though. What made her love it was the fact that as it was at the back of the house, it overlooked the garden. Also, duo had installed a huge bay window there, which had a windowsill big enough for her to sit on. The whole room was softly lit, creating a candle-like effect, and Jo immediately decided there and then that she never wanted to leave this house if she could.

As she turned to leave, she tripped on a wire sending a pile of papers flying.

"shit!" she muttered and began to frantically pick them up.

She'd have to apologise to duo when he got back. She just hoped he wouldn't mind her looking around the house and being up here. As she went to pick up one set of papers, a photo dropped out, but this one was different to the other ones.

This was a picture of the man she had seen in the photo in the living room, but this time not only was he covered in cuts and bruises, but he only looked to be a teenager, and his eyes instead of being filled with warmth and laughter like the other one, were full of coldness and hatred, making Jo shudder slightly, but then grin as she remembered that she had that effect on people herself when she was angry enough to glare like that.

As soon as she thought that, she jumped back, dropping the picture, then picked it up again and looked more carefully at it.

"his eyes…" she mumbled

She herself had Prussian blue eyes, and she'd never known anyone to have eyes that even came close to her colour, but this man, well, boy in this picture, had almost the exact same colour eyes as her, just slightly deeper. She decided to ignore that and continued putting all the papers back into the neat pile they were in before, and returned to the kitchen to was her glass up.

As she finished drying the glass she heard a noise behind her and quickly span around to see duo putting a bowl of fruit on one of the worktops. He turned and smiled at her, which she returned before telling him about the accident with the papers. To her surprise, he just laughed and ruffled her hair telling her it was no problem and that if she helped him restack them in order it should be done in about two hours.

After making sure they had enough snacks and drinks, the pair made their way up to the study and as the day turned to night, they eventually triumphantly put the papers back on the desk in their original order. Jo found the picture of the man again and decided to ask duo about him. Duo looked at her and the pain in his eyes made her wish she hadn't asked him.

Duo motioned for her to sit on the windowsill with him as he explained just who the man was.

"His name is Heero Yuy"

Jo looked at him with confusion and a trace of recognition on her face, the latter of which she was unaware of.

"Heero Yuy? Wasn't he one of the gundam pilots?" she asked

Duo smiled and nodded.

"Yeah, as was I once, but that was a long, long time ago."

Ignoring the look of shock on Jo's face, he continued.

"Anyway, after the war, Heero and I became best friends, and when he and Relena got married and had their daughter Joanne, I became Joanne's godfather. As you probably know through history lessons, or just as general knowledge, Relena was assassinated. Well, eight years later, I watched as Heero was killed and his daughter was kidnapped, and most likely killed too. I was unable to save them because I was knocked out when I tried to do something. I was too weak…"

At that, his voice failed him and he broke into uncontrollable sobs. Jo, having been used to children crying when they arrived at the orphanage, automatically pulled him into a hug and gently rubbed his back until he calmed down. It felt strange hugging a fully grown man but it didn't bother her. Once he stopped crying he pulled away and apologised.

"What for? You can't help how you feel about something. Always act on your emotions" she said.

Duo's head shot up and he stared at her with his mouth slightly open.

"Where did you hear that from?" he asked her.

She looked at him, confused at the question, before shrugging slightly.

"Dunno, it's something I've said since I can remember"

Once again Duo's mind began to wonder about who this girl really was, but he shoved the thoughts aside and looked at her. By now, she'd turned to look out of the window, and for the briefest second, duo could've sworn he saw Relena sitting there instead of Jo, admiring the beauty of the garden.

Jo gazed out of the window, and a small sigh of tiredness from Duo pulled her attention back and reminded her of the question she wanted to ask.

"Hey Duo? How come you're here alone and not with your family?"

Duo smiled at her before answering.

"I came back here after eight years for business a couple of months ago. My wife Hilde is up on L2 with my son and daughter. We're waiting for the school to close for summer and they're all going to be moving in here with me."

Duo noticed that Jo's face dropped slightly when he said that and he leant over to give her a reassuring hug, then tilted her face so she'd look at him.

"Listen madam, if I hadn't talked to Hilde and the kids first, you wouldn't be here. We all agreed to take you in so when they eventually move back here, you'll be staying, ok?"

Jo swallowed back the tears that threatened to come before hugging him.

Once they pulled away, duo glanced at the clock, and seeing that it was now coming up to one in the morning and he had to be up at seven, decided that he and Jo call it a night, which she gladly agreed to. He leant her a pair of shorts and a top to sleep in, then with the promise of clothes shopping the following afternoon, the pair of them went to their separate rooms to sleep.


	5. Quatre Revealed

Chapter 4

The next morning, as it was Saturday and he had the weekend off work, duo took jo to the library so that they could try and find Quatre. Even though the name Jo had been given was Quatre Barton, Duo had a 'sneaky' suspicion that it was actually his felloe ex-gundam pilot, Quatre Raberba Winner, but chose not to tell Jo for now in fear of either getting her hopes up or scaring her.

The librarian looked on the internet and then handed jo a sheet of paper.

"we only have two possible addresses. Good luck in your search."

Jo thanked the librarian and gave her a pound for the addresses, which she secretly thought was steep. She went outside and slid into the car next to duo and showed him the addresses.

"this one's in town and the second one's out of town." he informed her.

They decided that duo would go with her to both of the addresses, just to be on the safe side. They went to the first house that was out of town, which took an hour to go to. Jo knocked on the door twice and waited for an answer, but she wasn't too surprised when there was no response, especially as there was evidence to suggest nobody had inhabited the building for a while, such as the grimy windows and the overgrown garden.

She got back in the car, slightly disheartened and after an encouraging hug and smile from Duo, they turned back and went to the second address. This house looked a lot more promising. A couple of windows were open, the garden was neat and tidy and Jo could see a TV glowing in one of the rooms. She climbed out of the car and walked up to the door. Duo stayed in the car, but kept on guard just in case his gut feeling about who this 'Quatre' was happened to be wrong (A rare occurrence, but still possible).

With slightly trembling hands, Jo knocked on the door. A moment later, the door opened and a man about duo's age, with platinum blonde hair and light blue eyes appeared in the doorway and looked at her. As with any person he didn't know, he automatically tensed, readying himself for any trouble, something jo noticed. Sometimes, she wished she wasn't very observant, because then, she wouldn't have to swallow the sudden nervous lump that had appeared in her throat before speaking.

"Mr Barton?" she asked.

He relaxed his stance slightly. Hardly anyone knew he was now Barton, but he still remained on guard, just to be careful.

"yes, I am. What may I do for you?" he asked.

His voice was very gentle and friendly, and something in Jo's mind was trying to tell her she'd heard that voice before, but couldn't place it. Jo inwardly relaxed, especially when she saw him relax too, and replied.

"my name is jo. I was hoping that you could help me. I used to live in a town about a couple of hundred miles away but someone told me that if I wanted to find out my past I was to find you."

Quatre looked at her blue eyes and a picture of heero came in to his head, but he quickly shrugged the thought out of his mind.

"Actually, you remind me of a very good friend of mine once."

Jo smiled in her head, guessing at who this 'Friend' was.

"let me guess, Heero Yuy?"

Quatre looked at her with his mouth open in shock.

"why, yes, how did you know?"

Jo shrugged her shoulders.

"just a wild guess. I saw a photo of him and realised I looked similar to him"

Before quatre could reply, he looked over to the car and his mouth dropped even further with shock.

"d…du..duo?" he stuttered.

Duo grinned sheepishly at him from the car before stepping out and locking the door, glad that as per usual, his gut instincts were right. Now all he had to do was find out exactly who told Jo to find quatre and why.

"hi quatre, old buddy. How are you?" He called up the path as he walked up to quatre, then the two men threw their arms round each other into a fierce hug.

Jo looked back and forth between the two men.

"how the hell do you two know each other?" she asked them, confusion clearly etched on her face.

They both looked at her, Quatre to tell her they met in the war, Duo to say they were both Gundam Pilots, but before they could reply, another man came to the door. He was very tall, had caramel hair, green eyes and he wore a pair of blue jeans and a blue polo neck top.

"who's that, qua- duo!?"

Duo grinned broadly at him, and threw his arm around him. The man just stood there in shock, looking at duo, almost unbelievingly before shifting slightly to show Duo his discomfort. Duo smiled.

"Sorry Trowa! Forgot you don't like the whole hugging thing!"

Trowa ignored him, as he had spotted jo and his jaw dropped.

"no way!" he said.

Duo looked at him, confused. Trowa continued to speak.

"there's no mistaking who that is- that's heero's girl. Look at the hair colour, the build and especially her eyes." he said to duo and quatre. Jo had lost interest in the conversation, so was oblivious to the fact they were talking about her, and looked around the garden again, watching a butterfly fluttering around the flower bed.

Duo looked at jo with a grin on his face.

"I thought you looked familiar." he said, drawing her attention back to them.

"huh?" she said, not really listening.

Duo didn't notice her response and turned back to quatre.

"hey Quat not to be rude or anything, but, you gonna let us in or not buddy?"

Quatre when slightly red. and let them in with an apology for his rudeness, that both Duo and Jo assured him was fine. Jo was introduced to Trowa and she was also filled in that the reason they all knew each other was that they had all been Gundam Pilots, a fact that she accepted relatively well.

Quatre also explained to duo that the reason why he changed his name to quatre Barton instead of quatre winner was so that he could keep a low profile, away from the people who were still attempting to kill him even after all these years.

Jo by this point wasn't paying attention to o duo and quatre. She was looking at Trowa, who noticed this and looked back to her, his green eyes fixed on her blue ones.

"you said that I was heero's girl, so that must mean you know about me."

"I didn't think you heard. You looked like you weren't listening"

"I pretended. And I have sharp hearing."

Trowa gave her a small smile. Definitely Heero's kid, he couldn't be wrong.

"well, if you ARE her, then your name's Joanne Siobhan Yuy, you're 17 and your birthday's the 13th January. Duo is your Godfather, and your Godmothers are Duo's wife Hilde and your uncle's wife lucrezia."

He stopped talking and noticed that duo was staring at him because that was the most Trowa had ever said in one go before around him. Duo was about to say something about it, but a look from quatre stopped him.

Quatre asked him and jo if they would like to stay with them overnight as he had felt that jo wanted to ask a few questions and it would be better if they all answered them together than leave it all to duo, and the pair agreed.

Duo drove back to the house to pick up some things, leaving jo with his two friends.

"hey, you be good for them, okay?" he said before leaving.

Jo raised an eyebrow at him.

"Yes mum." she said sarcastically, then after the look she received in return, she added "Don't worry Duo, I'll be safe ok?"

Confident that she wouldn't be nervous around the pair, he disappeared off. Jo turned back into the house and moved into the kitchen to see the two men sitting at the breakfast bar, neither talking. She cleared her throat and the pair looked up at her.

"Hi. Umm, I have a LOT of thinking to do. I mean, we don't know if I am who you think I am, and I just want to sort some stuff out in my head, so do you mind if I sit outside for a while?" she asked them.

Quatre gave her a reassuring smile.

"of course you can. By the way do you like hot chocolate?"

Confused by the question, but not wanting to appear rude by not answering, jo nodded.

"I love it, but only if it has a bit of cinnamon in it. I hate it otherwise."

Quatre gave her smile and she disappeared out of the back door. He turned to Trowa with a contemplative look on his face.

"Quatre?" Trowa asked.

"Hot chocolate with cinnamon, Trowa, remember heero? Relena was always scolding him for giving their daughter cinnamon?"

Realisation dawned in Trowa's eyes.

"Oh my God, so she did. You really think it's her?"

"No doubt. I can feel something in her emotions. It's like she has her emotions but there's a block there, stopping her from remembering."

Trowa didn't answer, instead he looked out of the window at the girl who was now sitting on a swing at the bottom of the garden. The same swing that if she really was Joanna, was the first 'grown up' swing she ever played on when she was 6. Not that she'd remember.

As for jo, once she was out in the garden, still wondering about the question Quatre had asked her about, she stopped to look around the garden and noticed that it seemed familiar. In her mind she pictured a white swing at the bottom of a garden next to a big ditch with a river running through it and a big brown bridge crossing over the river. The image in her head was extremely fuzzy, like it wasn't quite real, but when she reached the bottom of the garden, there it was. A white swing, next to, well, it was actually a smallish ditch with a little creek running through it and the bridge wasn't that big, but it was all there.

At that point, it hit her. Hard. She knew they were there because she had seen them before, but as a child which is why everything would have appeared much bigger than it really was. She sat down on the swing and tried so hard to remember anything else from the fuzzy memories, but the more she tried, the more her brain hurt. In the end, she gave up trying and got up off the swing, deciding she would prefer to sit under one of the trees and daydream a bit. She wasn't ready to be on her own with the two men yet, she didn't feel as safe with them as she did with duo.

She wasn't sure how long she had been sitting there, but suddenly she felt a blanket being wrapped round her and someone picking her up. She opened her eyes, realising that she'd fallen asleep, and the first thing she noticed is that the sun had gone down and it was now quite dark. She looked up and smiled as she saw it was duo. He felt her move and grinned down at her.

"have a nice sleep?"

She nodded.

"how long was I out here?"

"about Five hours. Quatre and Trowa though you were still trying to clear your head and didn't want to interrupt you so I offered to come out and give you a blanket, but when I got to you I noticed you were asleep."

Jo grinned. That sounded about right. She was fond of sleeping under the stars. To her, it was like a comforting embrace, as if someone was up there watching over her.

Duo carried her into the living room and dropped her onto the nearest sofa, not realising that Trowa was already lying on it.

"owww! Duo!" Jo yelled.

He quickly picked her back up, apologising to the pair of them, and after putting her back down, this time on the empty chair, he disappeared out of the room, mumbling something about helping Quatre with dinner. Jo and trowa glanced at each other before quickly laughing and then sitting in relative quiet to watch the tv.

Once dinner was over the group sat down on the chairs. Jo was lucky, she won a game of rock paper scissors, meaning she got the sofa. She lay down and wrapped the blanket round her, listening to the men reminiscing about the war.

"Hey, remember on Peacemillion, when Noin had that time teasing me about my height? I'd love for her to see me now- I tower over her!" he laughed, the others joining in.

Jo wasn't really sure what they were on about, but she lay there listening. Eventually though, her eyes began to drift shut.

Duo looked over at jo about half an hour later and smiled softly when he realised that she had fallen asleep again, luckily indoors this time. He picked her up and carried her upstairs to the room Quatre allocated. Once her put her in the bed he sate down and gently stroked her hair. He had never been to quatre and Trowa's house when he lived on earth, and so hadn't recognised the address. If he had, it would've saved a lot of time that could have been spent taking jo shopping like he'd promised her. 'always tomorrow' he thought to himself. He gave Jo one last look before gently closing the door behind him and rejoining the others downstairs.


	6. A life: Remembered at long last!

The house was completely silent- well, apart from duo's extremely loud snoring. That, and there were strange yet almost inaudible noises coming from the room that Jo was in. She was having a dream that almost felt like a nightmare.

She was dreaming about her dad, for the first time since he was killed, she could finally remember. Finding out about herself must have been the last link to remembering her past. Everything about her father- the way he smiled at her, the way he only liked to drink hot chocolate with a hint of cinnamon (so that's where she got it from), the way he used to run around and play with her instead of working and when he used to tease Duo behind his back.

Then suddenly, she went from remembering the pleasant things to finding herself watching her father being shot by a madman. She remembered how she had run down the stairs after seeing her dad getting shot, at the time not thinking about the danger she was facing. Well, not until she ran into one of the goons who grabbed her as she screamed for her dad. The tears falling as she watched her 'uncle' Duo being knocked out.

The next images that went through her mind were of her and her dad being bunged into a car, her dad groaning, his breathing becoming more and more shallow as they moved. Eventually she couldn't stay awake, so she curled as closely to Heero as possible, sensing the absolute pain her must have felt as he weakly put an arm round her, and fell asleep. The next thing she knew, she was being woken up as the men took her dad away from her, and just threw him out the door. She remembered the rush of terror that filled her body and how it actually took two men to hold her back in her panic to stay with her dad, and then she was gagged as she screamed as loudly as her lungs would allow her.

Finally, the car stopped again and as soon as the door opened, she flew for it in a bid for freedom, not realising that this was exactly what her kidnappers wanted her to do. She felt a hand enclose around her mouth, and smelt a sweet smell, yet as she sniffed it, she felt her body go limp, and the world around her went black as she fell to the floor, hitting her head off the pavement. That must've been the point she lost all of her memories. One thing still remained blurry though; she recalled her dad telling her something, but the more she strained to remember, the further away she came to it. Then it suddenly hit her. Hard.

With a quiet yelp, Jo woke and flew up into a sitting position, tears streaming down her face. She grabbed her pillow and threw her head into it, allowing the sorrow to flow through her and pour out. Eventually, she found the sadness gave way to a feeling of happiness. The important thing now was that she remembered. Duo was going to be ecstatic when she told him in the morning.

Jo couldn't help but think how cliché the situation was. Out of all the people in the world she could have been rescued by, it was the one person other than her parents she loved the most. With that thought, she wiped away the stray tears off her face and curled back under her duvet, allowing the sleep to overtake her once again. At least now, there would be no more nightmares.

The next morning, duo walked into the kitchen to see jo standing looking out of the window with a cup of tea in her hand. At that moment, with her hair roughly swept up and a few bangs falling over her eyes, she could easily be mistaken for her father.

"Hi Heer..ahem. I mean Jo"

Jo rolled her eyes at his near-mistake. She realised now, that no matter how much she had missed all of her uncles, Duo was the one she missed the most.

Jo inwardly giggled at the bleary, sleepy look in Duo's eyes, knowing full well he was going to be wide awake very soon.

"come on Uncle duo, you should know the difference between me and dad by now." she said, just how she used to.

Duo's eyes opened as wide as they could go, and jo smiled at him.

"I remember everything" she whispered.

Duo walked up to her and gave her a long, hard hug. Jo returned the hug and after a few seconds, she could feel tears on her hair, and she realised that duo was crying.

"How?" was all her managed to croak out between tears.

"I dreamt it all and it all came back. Everything." she whispered, before joining him with her own tears.

A few seconds later, another pair of arms wrapped around her, and Jo smiled as she recognised Uncle Quatre's soft embrace. The three of them stood in the middle of the kitchen all hugging each other, until Trowa walked into the room.

"Have I missed something?"

They pulled away from each other and Jo turned to face him.

"You- since when did you start holding conversations?" she joked.

Something flashed in Trowa's eyes for a split second, which didn't go unnoticed by the group, but was replaced with his usual blankness as he pulled jo into a brief one armed hug before pulling away to make himself some breakfast.

Duo motioned for Jo to come upstairs with him and once they were in his room with the door safely shut behind them, he bent slightly so that he was level with Jo's eyes. One thing about her that surprised him was her height. Relena wasn't the tallest woman at five foot four, so she had to inherit her height from heero, who was six foot two. Jo herself was taller than ninety percent of women Duo had met in his life, and was probably taller than a lot of men, for example, Quatre and Wufei, but she was still shorter than he, Trowa and Heero, who all stood over six foot. He estimated that she was around five foot eight or nine, maybe even ten. Jo looked into his violet eyes, wondering to herself about what he was thinking. He snapped out of his thoughts before speaking to her, his tone deadly serious.

"I promise, not only as your guardian and Heero's best friend, but also as your friend and 'Uncle' that I will take care of you, whether it be forever, or just until you stop needing me. Are you happy for me to do that?" he asked.

Jo threw her arms around him and started to cry, a sign that he took as a yes to his question. He held her and gently rocked her until she had calmed herself down a bit, then guided her to the bed, sat her down and told her to lie down while he fetched her something to eat.

Once everyone had eaten their breakfasts and both Duo and Trowa had left fo work, Jo found herself bored, so she decided yo go and find Quatre to ask about he dad's grave. She found her Uncle in the kitchen staring into space with a fresh cup of tea in his hand. He heard her walk in and turned to face her, a warm gentle smile on his face.

"Hey uncle Quatre. Umm, I was just wondering, what did you guys do for my dad? Did you have a memorial set up for him or something?"

Quatre nodded before replying.

"Yes, up at the cemetery we had a makeshift grave for him. We also had one for you too, but that's at the sit of your mother's grave, because the plot for Heero's wouldn't fit a headstone big enough for two people."

"that's ok. He deserved one to himself anyway. All great people do"

Quatre chuckled softly at her words, not showing his surprise at the level of wisdom and maturity reflected in her speech. Then again as the daughter of a Peacecraft, she was bound to show some sign somewhere in her. He watched her as she put her Jacket and trainers on and gave her directions the Cemetery, roughly a half hour walk away. Jo assured him she would be safe. Just before she left, he handed her Duo's I-pod that he had left behind. She thanked him and slipped out the door, shutting it softly behind her as she did.

She soon found herself out of a black iron gate which had the word 'CEMETARY' written across the top. Just inside, there was a small, but very old church, made of rough grey stones and they also had a thin layer of green moss over them. Jo thought it looked very peaceful. She opened the gate and went into the church, where she saw a vicar standing at the back, looking at a bible.

"sorry to disturb you, but could you help me to find a grave?" she asked him.

The vicar smiled warmly at her and picked up a green book.

"who is it you're looking for my dear?"

"heero yuy."

The vicar looked surprised.

"no ones ever asked for him before. In fact, I hardly ever see anyone here. Sorry, please excuse my manners. I shouldn't be saying things like that."

Jo smiled warmly at him.

"It's fine- my family are either living on the colonies or wrapped up with work so are unable to visit very often. I myself haven't been to see him since he died as witnessing it kind of made it hard for me to face coming." she covered.

It wasn't exactly a lie, well, the first part was true, but she realised that even though she had tried not to, she'd pretty much just told him who she was. She could've hit herself for it. The vicar looked hard at her.

"you saw him die? Oh my…that must mean that you're the daughter of him and relena Peacecraft's aren't you? Joanne Peacecraft-Yuy, who vanished seven years ago at the same time as Heero?"

Jo nodded and bowed her head, trying to fight back another onset of tears. The vicar put an arm round her shoulders to comfort her.

"I assure you, nobody will be told of this. Now, come with me, I'll take you to him. I think he's waited long enough, don't you think?" he soothed.

Jo nodded, and still with his arm round her, allowed him to gently pull her outside and lead her to her father.


	7. The Cemetery

_I seem to be updating a lot more recently. Well, as it's Easter, I have time to write more! Plus, my writer's block has finally gone._

_I'm not sure about this chapter. I don't think it's come out that well, but I'll let you guys decide!_

_Enjoy!!!_

_........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................_

The vicar led Jo out of the door of the church, and took her up a path that slowly led up a hill. Right at the top, there was a single tree, a Japanese cherry blossom, and underneath it stood a single headstone, shining a bright white in the sunlight. Jo remembered something her dad said to her once when they visited her mother's grave when she was seven.

"he wanted to be buried under a tree. I'm glad the guys did that for him" she said, feeling tears build up behind her eyes.

The vicar sensed that the girl would want some time alone, so he left silently. Jo didn't even hear him leave.

There were a few flowers by the headstone, some relatively new, others on the verge of dying. She picked up the dying plants and put them to one side, noting that the card said they were from Quatre. She wasn't surprised. The newer flowers were from Trowa, which surprised her a little bit, only because he wasn't normally the sentimental type. She then remembered that he and her dad had formed a close friendship in the war, so maybe that was why he put the flowers down.

So far, she had tried to avoid looking at the headstone, knowing that the name she would see was the person she had adored and worshipped. Her daddy. She took a steadying breath, and stood up before moving her eyes up to the inscription.

**Heero Yuy**

**Born 15th June AC 180**

**Died 13th August AC 212**

**Age 32**

**A Beloved Father, Husband, Friend and Pilot.**

**He Saved Our Lives countless times**

**A true Hero**

Jo could feel the hot tears welling up in her eyes, and silently, she let them fall. A true hero. That's exactly what her father was, right until the end. Jo stood there, tears falling and sobs sticking in the back of her throat. She realised that the vicar had gone and turned back to look at the grave.

"hi dad, It's me. I'm back. I'm Joanne again" she said.

The wind around her suddenly felt warmer and seemed to wrap itself around her, like a protective barrier. To jo, it felt as if her father was standing there, and she started to cry again. The wind gently blew across her face, almost like a caress. she smiled softly as she imagined the wind to be her father's spirit. She knew it wasn't but she needed to believe it.

Once she stopped crying, she threw the dead flowers in the bin, and rubbed a streak of dirt off the headstone. She then sat down by the grave, talking about how her life had been living in the orphanage and the pain she had felt for so many years, not knowing who she was, yet knowing deep in her heart that she had seen something terrible. Eventually, she moved to sit under the tree, just looking at the headstone and watching the world go by. Even though she knew that there wasn't a body, she felt an inner peace and tranquillity sitting there, because there was a headstone, so that was where his spirit most likely lay.

The sun was beginning to set when jo finally decided to head back, realising she had been there for nearly six hours. She began to walk back down the hill after kissing the stone and promising her dad she'd come back soon, but something inside of her told her to turn back round when she was halfway down. She jumped as she saw someone standing on the top of the hill in front of her, looking at her. She looked closer, but she couldn't make out who it was. Normally, she would have run, but something told her she was safe. The feeling of warmth from the wind returned to her, and her eyes widened.

"Dad?" she spoke quietly.

The person's head moved slightly, as if they were looking behind her and she turned round, just as Duo walked up to her, smiling sadly, a small bunch of roses in his hand. She smiled back and glanced back to the hill, not really surprised, more sad, when she saw that the person had gone. She was certain at that point that it was her father's spirit standing there.

Duo noticed her looking back at the stone and put an arm round her, giving her a small hug.

"You ok, Jo?"

"Huh? Actually, I'm fine. I was a bit emotional when I first got here, but I feel ok now, uncle Duo."

Duo gave her another brief hug, and jogged up the hill to place the flowers at the headstone. Jo carried on down the hill, knowing that like her, Duo would want to say something. She looked back only once, to see Duo bend down and put a hand on the headstone and bow his head. Feeling as though she was prying on a private thing, she ran to the small church, and saw the vicar was still there. She tapped on the door and he called for her to come in.

She walked in to see him looking in a book again, a different one from earlier. He told her he would be with her in a minute, so she busied herself by looking around at the stained windows scattered around. When he was finished, he walked over to her and lay a hand on her shoulder.

"I just came in to thank you." She said.

"It's no problem. And I just wanted to say that I was telling the truth earlier. I promise you I won't tell anyone who you are. If anybody asks, I will tell them that you have moved in with your uncle Quatre and like to come here for some peace and quiet."

"thank you so much. Is there anything I can do to repay you?" she asked him

The vicar chuckled softly.

"if you wish to, I could use some help here on Sundays. After my service finishes in the main church in town, I come back here and go around all the graves, clearing weeds, putting flowers on those that have none and general maintenance. Usually though I can only get through about a quarter of the cemetery. If you want to help, we could probably get around half of it done."

Jo nodded and smiled at him.

"sure, I'll ask my Uncle Duo when he comes back down the hill. Oh and my Name's Jo." she said.

"I am Neil" He replied.

There was a tap on the door at that point. The pair turned to see Duo standing in the doorway smiling at Jo.

"did I hear something about you asking me something?" He asked.

Jo giggled. Sometimes, his hearing was too good.

"can I help out here on Sundays please?"

Duo looked at the happiness shining in her eyes and sighed to himself. How could he ever say no to her?

"Of course. I'll help too, if that's ok with you, father?"

"oh, please just call me Neil. And if you wish to help too, I would be more than grateful"

Duo looked at him with a strange expression. Jo knew it was because he was so used to saying father and sister, and she smiled before nudging him to bring him back.

"oh, sorry. Neil. Sure, I have nothing better to do on Sunday's. we'll come at about lunch is that ok?"

Neil nodded, and duo pulled Jo out the door after saying their farewells, stating they had to get to Quatre's for dinner. He led jo to the car and they set off back to Quatre's.


	8. Hilde Returns to Earth

Duo and jo arrived back at Quatre's house at around 7pm. Quatre opened the door with a slight look of worry on his face. Duo slipped into the house and disappeared into the kitchen with the food he and Jo picked up from the Chinese takeout. Jo cringed slightly as she realised that she had told Quatre she would only be a couple of hours, not seven, nearly eight. When Quatre saw Jo, he threw his arms around her.

"thank god! I was at the point of thinking something had happened to you!" he yelled.

"Uncle Quatre, don't you think you're over-react-oof!" Quatre cut her off as he held her tighter.

"Can't…breathe" she gasped.

No sooner had she said this then an unfamiliar man came out of the living room and spoke.

"quatre, the girl needs to breathe."

Quatre released jo, apologising over and over for nearly killing her. She caught her breath and rubbed her throat, before turning and looking critically at the man standing in front of her. She felt like she'd seen him before, and it suddenly clicked. The man from the orphanage who told her to find Quatre.

"you! You knew who I was all along! Why the HELL didn't you tell me, you jackass!?" she yelled.

Duo heard the raised voice of Jo and came into the room to ask what was wrong when he noticed the guest. His jaw dropped and his eyes widened in surprise and confusion. The man just looked at Jo with mild amusement, ignoring the insult she had just thrown at him.

"hello, miss yuy."

Duo looked over at jo, even more confused than he already was..

"how do you know Wufei?" he asked.

Jo rolled her eyes at duo, only he would ask a question as stupid as that, especially as it was obvious she DIDN'T know him.

"uncle Duo, I don't know him, per say. He was the guy who tipped me off about finding quatre."

Everyone turned to look at Wufei.

"why didn't you bring her here yourself, instead of letting an eighteen year old girl off on her own? Oh yeah, and she ended up in hospital!" duo yelled.

"Duo, calm down. We are all going to sit down and eat dinner and then we are going to discuss this like the adults we are." Quatre said, in his no-nonsense voice.

Once dinner was finished, and the plates were cleared, the group moved into the living room. Wufei stepped forward and looked at jo.

"hello. My name is Chang wufei, but everyone just calls me wufei."

Duo, all bad feelings from earlier forgotten now he had eaten something, bent down and whispered into Jo's ear.

"or you can call him Wuffie like I used to during the war"

Jo giggled and wufei glared at duo.

"I think you're forgetting, Maxwell, that I am a Preventer, so I still keep in shape, and though I no longer carry my katana around at all times, I still carry a gun and I am not afraid to blast that braid of yours into oblivion."

As he said this, his hand reached to his trouser belt and gripped the handle of his gun. Duo's eyes widened and through reflex, he gripped his braid, tucking it down his top.

He grabbed a chair from the kitchen and sat next to jo, who was sitting at the end of the sofa next to Trowa. She looked over at him and smiled. He grinned back. Jo turned to face wufei.

"so, what brings you here?" she asked him.

"well, I was sent by the presenters to find heero Yuy's daughter and get her to either Maxwell, winner and Barton. I thought Quatre would be the easiest to find, turns out duo was."

"well, you've done that. But why?" jo asked him.

"I was told to warn you that you are in danger. As you probably are aware no-one has any idea who killed heero, but we do know that whoever it was is worried that you might try to find him."

Jo looked at him, not quite sure what he was getting at.

"what are you getting at Wufei?"

Wufei looked sadly at her.

"I really hope that you didn't have any special friends there… two days after you left, the orphanage was bombed. A note was left by the attacker saying that you would never be able to find him this way. I'm sorry to say that No one survived."

"no!" jo yelled.

She started crying and duo wrapped his arms protectively around her.

"oh, yeah, way to tell her Wuffie!" he yelled.

"say that again, Maxwell and see what happens to that braid of yours!" wufei yelled back, jumping out of his seat.

Duo, being Duo and never one to back down from a blatant challenge, did say it again. Wufei grabbed hold of his gun and pointed it straight at Duo's braid. Duo jumped up, fists clenched and ready to fight. Trowa took jo into his arms and noticed that she had stopped crying, and was watching her Uncles with interest on her face. He also noticed a spark of amusement in her eyes. Quatre started shouting at wufei, telling him to stop it and trying to tell duo to sit back down. Jo, by this point burst out laughing at the sight.

Suddenly there was a loud bang and Wufei's gun flew across the room. Everyone fell silent, mouths wide open in shock and looked in the direction of the blast. A tall, brown haired boy with purple eyes stood in the doorway with a gun in his hand. He had one eye raised and there was a small smirk on his face. Behind him stood a tall woman with black hair and purple eyes, smiling warmly at everyone and behind her stood a little girl with black hair and violet eyes, glaring at wufei.

"Hilde?" duo asked.

He ran up to the woman and wrapped his arms around her. He then picked the little girl up and squeezed her, and then gave the boy a one armed hug.

"dad! Get off!" the boy yelled.

Duo pulled away and looked at them all.

"what are you guys doing here? You aren't expected for another three days!" he asked.

"well, we decided to come early, especially as we have the re-addition to the family and the kids wanted to see her again. " the woman said.

Jo had gone strangely quiet at that point, as everyone turned to face her. She blushed slightly too, not used to so much attention at once. Hilde looked over to her and her eyes brimmed with tears.

"My god, you look exactly the same!"

Jo smiled slightly and found herself pulled into a tight hug. This action caused her to grin. Aunt hilde had always had a way of crushing you with her hugs. Once again, jo found herself realising just how much she had actually missed everyone.

Hilde released her niece and pulled her over to the two kids. Jo looked at the pair of them, daemon looked the same as she remembered, just looked older, a lot taller and his hair had grown a bit so that it fell into his eyes. Helen though looked completely different, she was now a young lady, nearly up to her waist in height, and her hair was now the same length as duo. Daemon stepped forward and put his hands on her shoulders, giving her a critical eye. 'damn, when did he get hot?' she wondered, then mentally slapped herself. He was still her cousin, not by blood, but for all means, he was still cousin.

"Hey, remember me?" he asked.

She laughed at the serious look he gave her when asking her that, and she threw her arms round him.

"how could I forget you, daemon?"

"hey, I want a hug too!" Helen called, and was pulled into the hug by jo.

The adults watched the scene, all with smiles on their faces and all except Trowa and Wufei with tears either falling or close to falling. Jo and daemon had always had a bond, ever since they were babies, and they all knew how hard it hit daemon when he thought his 'cousin'/ best friend was dead. He had never been the same since, there was always something missing, but looking at him now, every adult knew that what every that something was, it had returned.


	9. Zechs and Noin

_ok, Jo is reunited with Milliardo and Lucrezia here. Just for reference, Jo calls them zechs (not to his face though) and Noin. Noin asked her to be called that, and she calls Milliardo Zechs due to her dad's influence- not surprising really when you think of Heero and Zech's feeling to one another?!_

Jo stepped back after she pulled away from her 'cousins' and sat back down on the sofa, watching her aunt and uncle with a contented smile on her face. Trowa glanced over at her out of the corner of his invisible eye, hidden by his hair, and the ghost of a smile appeared on his face, a smile that didn't go unnoticed by Quatre, who found that the scene in front of him caused him to turn and secretly wipe away the tiny glisten of tears collecting in his eyes. Trowa had never married or had any children, and instead had been like a second parent to Jo when she was growing up. All of her uncles were adored by her, especially duo, yet quatre had always known that deep down, she saw Trowa as her second dad. Duo was more the older brother than the uncle, which is probably why he and jo had always been extra close.

Turning back to look at everyone, quatre saw that jo had moved again, this time to join daemon who had finally managed to untangle himself from his dad's hugs and was now sitting on the windowsill, watching the cars speed down the road. Duo and Hilde had disappeared upstairs for some 'alone time' and no one else had decided to stop them as they all knew the temper hilde had, especially when it was aimed at someone coming between her and her husband.

Jo sat down next to daemon with a soft thud, and he turned to grin at her. She smiled back and leant next to him, and he wrapped one arm over her shoulders in a soft embrace. She relaxed against him, but straightened up slightly as she noticed a movement coming from up he drive, but as she turned to look properly, it had gone. She turned back to the boy sitting next to her.

"hey daemon?" she asked. He sent her a warm smile, that almost made her blush. Almost.

He turned to look at her, and also noticed the movement up the drive. He called out to let trowa know they had guests before responding to jo.

"yeah, what's up?"

"you've really changed. you look good." she said, and looked away blushing.

Daemon smirked and gave her a gentle push to hide his own embarrassment. She retaliated with a smirk and a punch to his arm.

"ow. Well, you look bloody amazing if you want my honest opinion." he answered.

Jo didn't quite know what to say to that, so she said the only thing she could think of:

"you're voice is weird."

"what? My voice? Are you on something? My voice is normal jo. Well, last time you heard it I still had a kids voice but you've got to admit, I'm pretty damn sexy now" he joked, trying to ignore the twitching of jo's lips as she fought back the laugh.

Daemon put on a look of mock hurt and insult as jo lost her battle against trying not to laugh, before joining in with her. Soon the pair were leaning on each other for support, neither one of them noticing the sudden quiet that had taken over the remainder of the household population. Even duo and hilde who had returned from upstairs were unusually silent. Finally jo stopped laughing for long enough to notice the silence and immediately sobered up, elbowing daemon's ribs to alert him of the situation. It took him a bit longer to calm down than it had taken jo but eventually he quietened enough for the new guests of the house to appear and make their presence known to jo. Her eyes opened wide as two adults, a man and a woman, gracefully and almost regally entered the room, and her jaw dropped of its own accord. As much as she didn't want to, she found herself crying yet again, as she flew into the awaiting arms of her last living relative: Milliardo Peacecraft.

Her uncle seemed hesitant at first to return her embrace as it was common knowledge that the pair had never really been close, as heero's influence had been strong in the young girl and she was so observant that she could sense the tension that was always present when her dad and uncle were together, and because of that she had always had trouble trying to form a relationship with him. However, at that minute just seeing a real blood relative, the last one she knew of, made her happier than she could ever have imagined possible and she just needed that comfort that can only be found through a relative.

Once she felt she had enough of love from her uncle, she pulled away and sent him a small smile, that was a borderline smirk. Duo almost laughed out loud at that, but his experiences with the lightning count had made him wisely choose the decision to keep his mouth firmly shut and silent. Jo then looked over to her aunt lucrezia, and launched herself. Lucrezia laughed as she pulled the girl into her embrace, burying her face in Jo's hair. The last time she had held jo like this jo had barely reached her waist, and now, her she was standing in the same embrace, now fully reaching the same height as her aunt, possibly even being slightly taller. Lucrezia had to try and get her head around that one. Unlike milliardo, jo and lucrezia had a close relationship, not close enough for jo to pour her heart out, but close enough so that jo could go to her knowing that no awkward questions would be asked and that the minute she left the room lucrezia would pretend the whole incident never happened.

She pulled away from her aunt, and was pushed in front of a teenage boy, around about the same age as her and daemon. No, he looked a bit older actually. There was another boy too who looked younger, and jo groaned as her memories reminded her that the two boys were her twenty year old cousin Jurei and her sixteen year old cousin Maxy. She was pulled into a hug by maxy and she wrapped her arms round him, giggling as he did his favourite trick from their childhood of him trying to tickle her as he knew that her only ticklish spot was the side of her ribs. She immediately tried to dodge his fingers, but as she moved, he was able to just catch her with one finger, and she let out a small yelp of laughter, causing everyone to look at her as if she had grown a second, possibly even a third head, before the whole room was once again laughing.

Jo glanced over to the only person not laughing, and surprise, it was jurei. It was no secret that there was no love between the two cousins, in fact jo blatantly despised him. Even now, seven years after she last saw him and lost her memory, she still felt the animosity towards him. He looked down at her with a disapproving glance, before sneering at her and causing her to bristle. She held her hand out in greeting, and after he looked at her hand as if it was a vicious beast, he reluctantly forced himself to shake it, but only because both his parents and all of his 'aunts' and 'uncles' were in the room. Not to mention the fat that daemon was giving him a weary look. Just as with jo and jurei, daemon and jurei also harboured a deep hatred for each other, each one baring a grudge against the other. Every time the pair were alone together, someone always ended up having to rush into the room to pull them apart. The testosterone levels between them were through the roof and both had a tendency to be quick with their fists, something that for daemon, was very unusual. Jurei was a cruel person naturally, and had always tried to make Jo's life miserable, especially as she was the only person other than his parents that he had never been able to intimidate, and it infuriated him. Even now, he was determined to make her afraid of him and do as he wished, especially as now, she didn't have her daddy there to pick her up again when he upset her.

Jo let go of Jurei's hand and stepped away from him, trying to move her hand and return the feeling back to it. His grip had suddenly tightened and caused her hand to go numb. Daemon noticed how she discreetly tried to hide the fact she was in slight pain and discomfort and glared at jurei, who returned the glare with a smirk, unnoticed by anyone. As much as he hated to admit it, jurei scared him. Only just, but enough to make him wish that he could well and truly take the guy out. He just wished that everyone would stop barging in every time they started fighting and let him prove himself. The only reason they stopped him was because of the fact there was a two and a half year gap between them, and that jurei might hurt daemon too much. Huh, as if. Daemon wasn't one to back down that easily.

Milliardo watched his son and Jo's reaction to each other and found that he wasn't surprised, but secretly disappointed to see that the pair still showed a dislike to each other. He sighed and shook his head slightly, before clearing his throat to attract Jo's attention. She looked up at him, giving him a questioning look, wondering what he was wanting.

"Joanne, can I speak to you in private for a moment?" he asked.

Jo rolled her eyes. 'same old uncle' she thought to herself. She followed him into the kitchen and sat down, grabbing an apple from out of the fruit bowl on the breakfast bar counter as she did. She bit into it, carefully watching her uncle close the door and locking it behind him. She raised an eyebrow at this, still munching the chunk of apple, wondering what on earth he was up to. What did he want to talk about so much that couldn't wait until later? He turned back to her and sat down opposite her, declining the offer of a piece of fruit. The level of seriousness shown on his face made jo feel nervous and she threw the half eaten apple into the bin, letting a small smile appear when it landed straight into it with a crash.

"What happened?" Milliardo asked.

Jo couldn't help but smile at that. He certainly hadn't changed; always straight to the point, never taking any sidetracking. Jo sighed, not wanting to tell him what happened but knowing that she had to, so she told him everything, only leaving a couple of things out, such as how she cut her neck on the day her dad died, and how the last moment she remembered sharing with her father had been him dying while holding her and then having him being ripped away from her. Once she had finished, milliardo moved round to her, and hesitantly put his arms round her, not sure if it was the embrace she wanted, but was surprised when she allowed him to hold her and actually put her arms round him. She didn't shed any tears, just needed to feel the comfort of being loved.


	10. Friendship, Love and Betrayal

Chapter 9

Two months had passed since Jo had been reintroduced to her family. Milliardo and lucrezia had asked her if she would like to move in with them, but as she was more comfortable with duo and his family, she had decided to stay with them. Milliardo had tried to protest, but after she reasoned with him that she had made the right decision, he eventually backed down and grudgingly allowed her to stay with her other godparents.

The room she had been given by duo was different to how it used to be. Three walls were now a powder blue with the window wall being a very pale green. The carpet was still the same, but now had a blue rug on it. All the furniture was the same as she loved it, and the bed was also still the same, just with pale green bed spreads and cushions scattered over it. Duo had taken her out like he had promised, and spent over £400 just on clothes for her, Hilde and Helen. When jo asked him why, he replied that he always looked after his queen and princesses, which caused jo to blush and go a bit quiet, only broken when daemon made a comment about it, and she turned and punched his arm as a response. Duo and hilde didn't care how much it cost. After everything she had been through, they just wanted jo to have a happy life.

………………………………....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Right at the moment, all jo wanted to do was sleep, but she couldn't with her alarm clock screaming in her ear. Groaning, jo rolled over, and promptly fell out of bed with a thud.

"ouch!" she yelled.

She reached up, turned her alarm off, then grabbed a pillow, lay her head on it and fell asleep on the floor. Duo walked in and at first looked around in confusion as she wasn't there, until he noticed a foot on the floor poking out of the end of the bed, and laughed as he saw her curled up on the floor with her duvet. He went over to the window and threw back her curtains, letting the sunlight flood into the room.

"come on jo, school." he said.

Jo gave her uncle her death glare, which caused him to step back in shock. Jo still sometimes knocked him off guard with how much like her dad she was, and pulling off the death glare was one of those times. The effect of the glare didn't intimidate him after having nearly fifteen years worth of them from heero, but seeing it after so many years reminded him just how intimidating and downright scary it could actually be. He smiled at jo, despite her glare, then pulled her duvet off her and opened her window as wide as possible to let in the cold air.

"uncle duo!" she screamed.

Too late. Duo had shut her door behind him and left her to freeze.

'damn him' she thought to herself as she gritted her teeth against the cold.

………………………………....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Leaville high. Jo had started there a month ago, and had become firm friends with a girl there called kiya black. Jo liked the school because everyone was so friendly and welcoming. Daemon and her cousin Maxy attended there. Even though he was a year below them, Maxy stuck with them at lunch and breaks, but none of them cared. He was Jo's cousin, after all. She had decided to register under the name Jo Yuy as she didn't want to draw attention to her real identity.

Kiya black was a short yet slim girl that had been the first person to really make jo feel welcome. After being introduced to her class, jo was placed next to Kiya in the geography lesson. Kiya had sent her a shy smile before returning to her book. At one point the teacher asked kiya what irrigation was, and kiya stammered over the answer before completely giving up and start crying silently. The teacher didn't notice as she asked jo the answer, and jo gave her the answer straight off the top of her head. The teacher turned back to the board after congratulating jo for knowing, and jo turned to look at the table behind her where two girls were sniggering and one muttered about the fact that kiya was crying.

"Hey. Did you two know the answer?" Jo asked

Both of them shook their heads and looked shocked that she had spoken to them. The first thought that came to Jo's head was cheerleaders. It was obvious.

"Yeah, well, who the hell are you to have a go at her for something you don't even know yourselves?"

The two girls looked at her in shock, before the brunette glared at her and told her to go back to her peasant world. Jo snorted loudly, which caused everyone to look at her. If anyone was a peasant, it certainly was not her, not with her parentage.

"is there a problem miss Yuy?"

"I was just explaining to these two ladies here how it isn't exactly justified to make fun of somebody for not knowing something especially when they have not idea of the answer themselves."

The teacher looked at the group of four girls, and he only noticed at that point that kiya was crying. He excused kiya and jo from the lesson and told jo to take kiya to the councillors' office. Once they were outside the door, jo turned to kiya.

"umm, where do we go?" she asked.

Even though she was still shy, kiya let out a tiny laugh.

"this way. I hate being so weak. It's probably why no-one lets me in here.""well, it's a good job I'm here. Say hello to your new best friend."

Laughing, the two girls made their way down to the office, and from that moment, they became inseparable.

Kiya, it turned out, was a natural at self defence and jo had been teaching her during lunch. Being around jo, maxy and daemon, who were all loud and outgoing naturally, had done wonders for her. She was no longer afraid to speak in class, she quite often started conversations with other people, but the biggest change that left everyone in shock including jo, and had boys trailing her for days, was when she decided to have a makeover. She left school on the Friday wearing big baggy clothes and hiding her face behind waist length auburn hair and also wearing glasses, and on Monday she returned wearing a pair of skinny jeans with cowboy boots and a fitted t-shirt. The glasses had gone and were replaced with contacts, and the biggest shock was her hair. It was now barely touching her shoulders and had been straightened and layered so that it fell in a soft curtain of rich auburn. Even the cheerleaders had taken a step back. Jo was so proud of her friend for taking that step, and the pair had a celebratory sleep over that weekend.

One thing jo had noticed was that kiya and maxy seemed to be getting close. Jo and daemon were always teasing them, especially kiya saying how they were suited for each other and hurry up and get together, but the pair were quickly silenced when kiya threw a comment back at them.

"maybe you two should focus less on us two, and look at yourselves and what's right there in front of you."

Before the pair could reply, maxy came bounding over with another guy in tow. He paused to catch his breath and give kiya a kiss on the cheek, and after punching daemon for the wolf whistle he casually threw, introduced the person with him.

"this is riley Bennett. He just moved here. He's in your year"

Riley was very tall and had dark blonde hair. He also had sky blue eyes. Jo felt attracted to him immediately, although a slight pang in her chest made her want daemon, but this new guy was totally gorgeous and jo found she was unexplainably attracted to him. Riley looked at jo and inwardly smirked. He'd finally found her.

………………………………....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

On the last day of the school year, four months later, riley and jo had become a couple, even though kiya and maxy both kept telling her she should be with daemon, but she always shrugged them off, stating that she only saw daemon as a cousin and best friend, nothing more. As she was walking to biology, riley ran over to her. He grabbed her and as she turned round, he kissed her softly.

"hey" he said.

Jo smiled, and before she could say anything, he kissed her again. She wrapped her arms round the back of his neck and smiled as he broke the kiss.

"what have I done to deserve this?" she asked him.

"nothing. Ummm, would you like to come over to mine for dinner tonight?"

Jo smiled.

"yeah, I'm sure uncle duo won't mind."

Later that evening, jo came downstairs wearing her only pair of good jeans and her favourite top. It was a black spaghetti strapped top with a purple layer of fishnet over the top. She also wore the necklace that she had brought with her, that had belonged to heero. It was a silver cross with thin loops joining the cross together and it was attached to a silver chain. Jo wore it all the time and only took it off when she had a shower. The doorbell rang and she answered it. Riley smiled at her and she walked out, yelling 'see ya' to everyone. Daemon and hilde shouted back and jo shut the door.

Riley picked her up and they pulled up in front of a small mansion. Jo, being used to mansions as a child, had to remember that she was supposed to be a normal girl and feigned shock and wonder at seeing the mansion. As they walked into the door, they were greeted by a butler.

"miss Yuy, I presume."

Jo nodded and the butler took her coat off her once she had removed it.

"Joseph, where's my father?" riley asked.

"he shall be down shortly, after he's finished, umm, preparing for our guest." he said and chuckled.

Jo raised an eyebrow at the chuckle. Something was wrong here, and jo was making sure to stay on her guard, mainly by looking for all escape routes in the dining room. She really liked riley, but something about his attitude put her on edge. Riley led jo to the dining room, and jo didn't notice, but he whispered to Joseph.

"try not to give us away, we don't want her to suspect anything."

As they arrived in the dining room, they waited for riley's dad to arrive, but as he entered the room, jo stepped back in horror when she saw him.

"hello miss Peacecraft-yuy. You thought you'd got away didn't you? I'm so glad my son got you to trust him." he turned to riley.

"kill her"

Riley grinned and nodded. He pulled out a gun and fired. Jo yelled and ducked under the chair as the bullet smashed through the window behind her. She screamed as riley kept firing, but he then stopped to reload. Seeing her chance, jo raced for the window and jumped out of it, catching her back on the glass as she did, almost in the exact place she had been caught before. Not caring if she was seen, she raced down the garden and jumped over the wall at the end of it, just as the shooting started again, narrowly missing her. Once she was back on to the street, she ran, not stopping despite the pain.


	11. Saved by the Motorbike

_sorry it's taken so long to update- I've really been struggling for inspiration on this one!_

_Hopefully I'll update sooner next time!_

_Enjoy!!!_

Her necklace had been ripped off as she had jumped through the window and was now hanging on the window frame but at that point, she didn't realise as she was too busy running like hell to save her life. Jo screamed as a fresh hail of bullets flew past her, narrowly missing her, until suddenly, she yelled out in pain as one of the bullets grazed her lower arm, near her wrist. Still, she never stopped running, even though her legs were burning in agony and her lungs felt like they would burst as they were being so overworked. All Jo could think about at that exact moment was getting home and back to safety.

After about fifteen minutes of running, she couldn't hear anyone following her anymore, but then she realised that they had taken a shortcut she had just passed. It was a very small alley that linked this street with the next one and led out right in front of her. If she went backwards or forwards, she'd be killed, but she didn't care about that anymore. She just carried on going forwards hoping to outrun them, but just as she started to run, a motorbike flew past her and she was pulled on behind the driver.

She held on to the person as hard as she could, and screamed as the motorbike flew past riley, who was pointing a gun in front of him. He watched her go, stunned, then threw his gun on the floor in anger and stormed off, knowing that he had been beaten this time. Jo watched him go with a wave of relief running through her, then turned to look at the person on the motorbike, and that relief quickly turned into panic. Who was this guy? Friend or enemy?. She signalled for them to stop and they did. She quickly got off the bike in alarm and looked at the person with suspicion.

"who are you?" she demanded.

The person unclipped the helmet and took it off. Jo gasped.

"Daemon! But how…?"

"I didn't trust riley, so I installed a listening device in your earring that you're wearing. When I heard riley saying to his butler that he didn't want you to suspect that he was going to kill you, I sorta borrowed dad's bike without him knowing and I came and rescued you."

Jo threw her arms around her friend gratefully and sighed as she pressed herself into his chest, smelling the familiar sent of his aftershave through his shirt.

"thank you." she whispered, too tired to say anymore.

Daemon blushed slightly as he wrapped an arm round her and gave her a quick hug. He then glanced down at her arm and back and saw that they were both bleeding quite badly.

"come on, get on. I'm taking you to Trowa so that he can sort you out."

"why not your dad?"

"Trowa and Quatre live closer than dad, and before you ask, I only said Trowa because Quatre's not there at the minute"

"oh, right."

Jo got on behind him again as he started up the engine. She put her arms around his waist, looser this time and rested her head on his back. She was so tired, she fell asleep, still holding on to him. What neither of the teenagers noticed when they left was the person on the black motorbike in the shadows watching them leave.

When the stranger had seen Jo's near- panic when she noticed the trap she had set herself into by accident, he had nearly helped her but just as he was about to move, Daemon had appeared grabbed her, so he stopped himself and remained hidden.

'oh good, she's safe.' he thought, then went off in the opposite direction to the teenagers. He had something to do.

Trowa was happy and relaxed. Quatre was away for the weekend, meaning he was free to sit on the sofa drinking a beer and watching his favourite show without being interrupted. That is, until he heard a motorbike engine cut off near the house, followed by someone started hammering on the door just seconds later.

"alright already! I'm coming!" he called as the hammering didn't stop.

Someone was hammering on his door and he didn't like it one bit. He opened it and saw Daemon standing there with jo in his arms.

"what the hell?" he stammered.

Daemon's face was almost purple with fury, and he spat out his words as if he was firing a machine gun; hard, fast and with a punch.

"that jerk Riley tricked Jo! He made her trust him and then he and his dad tried to kill her just now!" Daemon yelled.

"what!?" Trowa said.

Forcing himself to control the emotions flowing through him at that moment, Trowa gently took Jo off Daemon and ordered the teenager to get the first aid box. The first thing that Trowa noticed other than the blood was that Jo's necklace was missing.

"She's not going to like that." he said to himself.

He had only seen the necklace a few times, but he remembered that Heero had given it to relena, and when relena died, he always wore it. He knew Heero had given it to Jo the day of the incident and she cherished it. He knew how much it would upset her when she learnt it was missing, possibly forever.

When Daemon came back in, they moved her, cleaned her up and bandaged her arm, and put a piece of gauze over her neck. Daemon then went and stood outside the room while Trowa changed her in a pair of pyjamas that luckily she had forgotten to take with her after her and Duo had stayed that time. Trowa then let Daemon back in and the boy sat in the chair next to the bed. The phone rang at that moment and Trowa moved out onto the landing to answer it.

"hello?" he asked.

"Trowa!" Duo yelled. "Daemon and my bike are missing and Jo isn't home yet!" he sounded hysterical.

"Duo, calm down, they're both with me." Trowa said calmly.

He explained everything to Duo. After Duo had finished swearing, cursing and threatening to do all sorts to Riley next time he set eyes on the lad, he calmed down enough to speak properly.

"I'll be over in ten minutes. Is that ok?"

"sure thing Duo."

Trowa put down the phone and went back into Jo's room. She was still asleep. Daemon looked up at him with a tiny bit of fear in his eyes. Trowa could also tell that Daemon had been crying, but pretended that he hadn't seen it as he knew it would only make him feel worse.

"that was my dad wasn't it?" Daemon asked.

That explained the fear. He was scared about what trouble he was in, but Trowa had a very funny feeling that Duo would let him off, this time.

"yes it was"

"did he sound mad?"

"no- he was just worried about you and Jo, that's all."

Trowa put a hand on Daemon's shoulder then went downstairs to wait for Duo to turn up. He was so mad at Riley. They had all trusted him. Well, they wouldn't make that mistake again. The door knocking made him jump, only slightly. He'd been so wrapped up in his thoughts that he hadn't heard Duo's car pull up. He went to the front door and let Duo in. He was uncharacteristically white and it was obvious he had been on the verge of crying.

"how are they?" Duo asked

"They'll both be fine- come on, I'll show you."


	12. The Stranger

Duo opened Jo's door and he and Trowa walked in. both of them smiled at the sight. Daemon was still sitting on the chair, but he was holding Jo's hand with his head leaning against her good arm. Jo had her head resting against his and both of them were fast asleep. Duo felt Trowa put a hand on his shoulder.

"I think your son has fallen in love with her." he whispered.

Duo nodded his agreement.

"so do I. But, who would have thought? I didn't think that Daemon was even that interested in girls at the minute" he said to Trowa.

"well, maybe he has, but instead of being interested in loads of them he was only interested in one- Jo, but he's managed to keep it a secret until now"

Duo smiled softly and after and Trowa disappeared out of the room, returning a minute later with a blanket that he covered daemon with. After that, the two men went downstairs, and dup called Hilde to let her know the teens were fine and that he was staying at Trowa's for the night to bring them home in the morning. Trowa had been upstairs during the phone call, and threw a pillow and spare duvet to duo, who nodded his thanks before laying down. Trowa joined him by sitting at the end of the sofa and the pair of them sat there, quietly arguing over what channel they were going to watch, before moving onto a discussion about hw they were going to make riley pay for what he did to Jo.

Meanwhile, back at riley's house, things weren't so peaceful, especially as riley had returned home empty handed after Jo had managed to get away before his dad was able to kill her. His dad had been less than impressed with how the evening had turned out.

"how could you let her get away?" his dad yelled.

Riley was used to his dad's temper, but it had never been aimed at him before, so seeing this side of his dad actually scared him a bit.

"father, I'm telling you, it honestly isn't my fault! I was just getting ready to shoot her when some guy on a bloody motorbike grabbed her and took her away! There was no way I would have been able to chase them, unless I could fly!"

His father glared at his son. Typical. When you think you have someone capable of doing something, they always ended up letting you down in some way or another. He was just about to start speaking again when he noticed something silver and glinting, hanging off the broken window frame. He stooped down and pulled it off the frame to see that it was Jo's necklace.

"well, well, look what I found." he said triumphantly.

"Jo's necklace!" riley exclaimed.

"now this could be to our advantage." noticing his son's puzzled face, he explained. "well, she would give her life to keep this necklace because it's the only possession of her father's that she owns, so if we send her a letter saying we have it, then she will come and get it. When she does, we'll kill her." he said.

"how do you know it's all she has of his?"

"he gave it to her the night we 'dropped him off'"

Riley smirked at that, and his dad just smiled.

Both he and riley then started laughing as it seemed as though the tables were finally turning, that is, until a voice called through from the shadows over by the far wall, making the pair of them jump back in surprise, and in riley's case, made him jump back in fear.

"you could just give the necklace to me and I'll give it back to her so that she stays safe and unharmed, and then I won't have to kill you." the person growled.

"who are you?" riley demanded, with a hint of fear showing in his voice, as it had a soft quiver to it.

The man paused slightly before responding with a hint of amusement.

"shut up junior, this is for me and your father to sort out, isn't it Mr Reeve Kushra?"

"riley. Go" Reeve said.

"but…"

"GO!"

Riley walked out of the room, glaring as best as he could towards the mysterious man in the shadows, who fought not to snigger at how pathetic the teenager actually was. Reeve waited until he could no longer hear his son before he turned back to the mysterious man, who was still hidden in the shadows.

"so, are you going to come out or are you too afraid?" he asked.

"I'd prefer to stay here thank you very much. It's much more satisfying to watch you squirm" the man returned.

"why? Someone after you?"

"no. I'd just rather not have to show myself to the likes of you. Now, are you going to give me that girl's necklace?"

Reeve thought about it for a minute. He could keep the necklace and kill the guy, then the girl, or he could give the necklace to the man, and the girl lived. Ah, decisions, decisions…

"I'm waiting" the man snapped.

"I don't think you can have it" Reeve said and moved to put it in his pocket.

The man in the shadows had seen enough. He moved away from his spot and grabbed Reeve, pulling him into a headlock, so that Reeve couldn't see who he was.

Reeve struggled against the man's deathlike grip, but knew it was no use.

"you're dead" he hissed to the man threateningly.

It didn't work as the man just snorted, finding the threat funny.

"am I really? I hadn't actually noticed as I'm not in a box in the ground." was the only response he received.

Reeve felt the man's hand move towards his pocket, and a moment later, watched as the necklace was pulled out and put into the man's jacket pocket. Reeve growled.

"thank you. Now, you leave her alone or you'll have me to deal with." the man said.

With that, he let go of Reeve and jumped out of the window that Jo had jumped out of earlier that evening. Reeve ran over to the window and began shooting at the guy, only to find he had vanished. Frustrated, Reeve called riley back into the room, before deciding that it was best to sleep on it and come up with a new plan tomorrow. With that he sent his son to bed before moving away to his own room shortly afterwards.

Back at Trowa's house, Jo woke up with a jump as she had a flashback to the events of the evening. She felt a weight on her good arm, and wondered what it was. When she looked and saw Daemon sleeping on it, holding her hand at the same time, she smiled to herself. Acting completely on impulse, and shocking herself afterwards, she gently kissed the top of his head and then rested her cheek on his hair, finding the smell of him helping to lull her into a deep sleep.

Duo had been outside the room to witness the interaction and smiled to himself as he watched his son and god daughter. He had just come up to the toilet and had heard some movement from the room, so had poked in to have a look. He turned to go back downstairs, bumping straight into Trowa, who had been standing behind him without him realising it.

"looks like my goddaughter has fallen for my son as well as it being the other way round." duo whispered.

Both of them smiled in agreement before Trowa moved to his bedroom, and duo walked back downstairs to sleep on the sofa.


	13. Fire!

It had been a week since jo had been shot by the man that had killed her father and tried to kill her. Her arm had healed reasonably well, leaving what was going to be a small scar. The only thing that gave away how badly it had affected her was the difference in her personality. She always wanted to have someone with her at all times, as her confidence had been almost completely shattered.

Daemon was the main person that never left her side. Wherever Jo was, it was guaranteed that either he or little Helen were nearby. Jo really enjoyed having the company and it had helped her to start regaining some of her confidence.

Zechs, Lucrezia and her cousins had been to visit her the day after the incident. Zechs had to be restrained by Duo, Trowa and Hilde as he flew into a rage, and marched straight to the door, fully prepared to march to Riley's house and show him why he shouldn't mess with the niece of the lightning count. Lucrezia had shaken her head at her husband's actions, whereas Jo actually found it quite amusing to watch.

Today, Duo was heading over to the town to get a new CD and DVD player, as Helen had accidentally broken the old CD player, and he himself broke the DVD player. Jo had surprised everyone by asking to go with him, but only if he could drop her off at the cemetery. Duo had almost been reluctant, but after she persuaded him she would be safe, he relented and allowed her to go.

As the pulled up in front of the cemetery, Jo leant over the seat and gave duo a kiss on the cheek, then reached behind her to pick up the bunch of flowers off the back seat before gently climbing out so she didn't bang her head off the frame. She waved to him as he drove off, then opened the cemetery gate and went inside.

Neil saw her as she entered, and gave her a friendly and enthusiastic wave. She waved back before starting to walk up the hill. After a few minutes, she reached the top and saw her fathers headstone. She smiled as she looked at it, but her smile lessened slightly as she noticed that there was something hanging off it. She cautiously moved up to it and realised with a gasp that it was her dad's necklace! Underneath the necklace, there was a note addressed to her. She opened it, frowning in confusion. Was this a trap?

_Dear Jo,_

_I believe that Riley and Reeve Kushra stole this from you. Well, I got it back for you. I can't tell you who I am because it would cause too much confusion and it would put your life in danger. All I will say is I will always be watching over you._

_Be safe._

_p.s, Do not show this to anyone, if they ask, tell them the necklace was there with no note. Trust me, it's safer and easier for me to stay secret._

Jo folded up the note, the frown still on her face. She folded the note back up and slipped it into her jeans pocket. Whoever it was that had given her the necklace back obviously wasn't about to threaten her life, and something inside her told her that she could trust whoever this person was. She gently took the necklace off the headstone and stroked it fondly a couple of times, before undoing the clasp and slipping it around her neck. She looked at the time and saw that she still had about an hour before duo was due to pick her back up, so she opened her rucksack and pulled out one of her books. She sat herself under the tree by the headstone, before settling down to read.

Not too long after she had started to read, jo looked up in confusion as she could smell smoke. As she moved to close her book and put it away, she heard a scream. She stood up and looked down at the church to see that it was on fire! Jo threw her bag down on the ground, and raced down the hill as fast as she could to try and help Neil, who was nowhere to be seen. She was so busy running, she didn't notice the man that dropped down from the tree branches and place something in her bag.

"be strong" he whispered, before turning and heading down the hill himself, ready to help, but only if it was absolutely desperately needed.

As she reached the church, she saw duo as he jumped out of the car, and shouted out to him. He came over and ordered everyone to stand back before calling out to an onlooker to phone the fire brigade. Jo looked in and saw a few people in the building, then watched as Duo tried to break the door down, but she realised that it was hopeless and he would never get to them in time. She ran to the back of the church and saw a broken window. She called duo and he jumped through it, yelling at her to stay there and help people get out.

She could see five people in total, one of them being Neil. Duo grabbed the first person and he pushed them over to the window. Jo grabbed the woman's arms and helped her out. Before long, four out of the five people were out and being carted off to the ambulances that had just turned up. Now all that was left were just duo and Neil. Jo's heart leapt into her mouth.

Duo saw that a beam had pinned Neil down, preventing him from escaping. He tried to lift the beam, but realised that it was just a bit too heavy for him. Suddenly the beam became lighter. He looked over and saw jo standing next to him. She was coughing and it wasn't until that moment that duo realised that he was almost burning and could hardly breathe.

"Jo!" he croaked

She looked over at him, a steely determination shining in her eyes.

"get out of here!" Neil called.

"no way, I'm helping!" she called back, before coughing.

Duo pushed all thoughts aside. He had to get Neil and Jo out of here. Between them, duo and jo managed to get the beam off Neil, before Duo told Jo to help to get him out of the building.

Duo paused to look around and make sure that everybody was out. His eyes stung and his arm was starting to go bright red as the flames edged closer to him. Satisfied that everybody was out, he turned to follow Jo out, but there was a sudden crash from above him. Jo turned to see a part of the roof cave in, one beam landing directly next to duo.

"DUO!" she screamed, then started to cough again.

"don't worry, the beam missed! Go!" he yelled.

Jo nodded and duo watched with a rush of relief as she climbed out of the window to safety, just as another beam fell and blocked his only exit.

He then winced in pain as he looked down at his leg. The beam hadn't missed at all. In fact, it had gone straight onto his leg, trapping him, but he didn't want to endanger Jo by showing that he had actually been caught. He thought about jo and the rest of his family, feeling a strong sense of emotion build up inside him, giving him some strength to free himself. He braced himself and pushed as heard as he could against the beam, but apart from a slight shift, it remained in place. He lay back down, energy drained, and a few tears fell onto the floor.

"I'm sorry. I failed" he whispered.

Just before he passed out in pain, he saw someone walk over to him. Someone with short, messy brown hair and a pair of deep blue eyes, so familiar.

"h…heero?" he asked, then passed out.

The person lifted the beam off him and picked him up. He then jumped out of the window, and as he landed on the floor, the whole church toppled down and crumbled.

"DUUUOOOOOO!!!! NOOOOO! LET ME GO, MY GODFATHER'S IN THERE!" Jo screamed.

The stranger took a great risk and called out.

"Duo's here!" he yelled.

He then quickly ran over to the cemetery gates and threw himself over them, running off down the street as he did.

Jo thought she saw him go as she raced over to duo, but couldn't be sure. If it was him, his left arm had a huge gash on it, but he disappeared at that moment. She threw herself onto Duo, crying as he sat up slightly and moaned. She released him and he started looking around frantically..

"where'd he go?"

"he ran off." she answered.

Duo's vision began to swim again, and he smiled softly at Jo when she looked at him with worry.

"Jo, it was Heero. He's alive." he said then passed out again.

Jo looked back towards the trees, there was no way it was him. Even if it was, why did he run? It just couldn't have been him. Could it?.

"dad?" she whispered.


	14. Hospitals and Kidnappings

"Jo!"

Jo turned round and saw Quatre, Trowa, Wufei and daemon running towards her from across the parking lot. She had just come outside to get some fresh air. She'd always hated hospitals, especially when it wasn't her who was the patient. They always made her feel crabby, so she was always glad to be able to get out and breathe properly.

Quatre was the first one to reach her and the first thing he did was give her a hug. Up until now, the shock over what had happened hadn't really had a chance to be able to sink in, but now that she was in the arms of someone she knew, it finally hit her. She wrapped her arms round him and a few tears fell onto his shoulder.

"shhhh. Don't worry, everything's going to be ok."

Jo wiped her eyes before looking at Quatre.

"thanks." she whispered.

He gave her another hug for reassurance, then turned and went into the hospital. Wufei followed him, pausing for a brief moment to lay a friendly hand on her shoulder and squeeze it. Trowa also hugged her before following the other two, leaving just her and daemon behind.

Daemon moved to stand next to her, and she put an arm round him as he leaned against her and cried.

"you ok?" she asked, when he finally calmed down.

He gave her a small smile, before coughing and trying to cover up the fact that he had been crying. Jo playfully nudged his shoulder, before asking him when Hilde and Helen were coming.

"mom finishes work in ten minutes, so she'll probably be here in five"

The pair shared a laugh at that, before daemon cast a worried glance at the hospital, that didn't go unnoticed by Jo, she nudged him.

"go on in. I'll be there in a minute"

Jo looked over to a shaded part of the hospital building. She wasn't sure exactly how she knew, but she just knew that the person that had saved her uncle was there, watching her.

"thank you." she said.

She spoke just loudly enough for whoever it was to hear her, before turning and following her friends back into the hospital.

The man standing in the shade pulled further into it as she had looked over towards him. He smiled to himself as she said thank you and watched her proudly as she calmly pulled herself together before moving indoors again. He decided to stay where he was, just in case there was any news, whether it be good or bad.

Jo sat down after returning to the others and looked in her bag to grab her book that she had been reading earlier. While waiting for the doctor to tell them about duo, she decided to finish the book. As she reached into her bag, her hand brushed against the package. She drew her hand out and Quatre gave her a funny look.

"Jo honey, are you ok?"

"yeah I'm fine uncle Quatre, I just need the toilet"

"ok, don't take too long"

"I won't"

As soon as she closed the stall door of the toilet, she grabbed the package and unwrapped it. Inside was a green tank top. The top had a few stains on it, including what suspiciously looked a lot like blood. There was another note attached to the top.

_Jo, your dad wore this when he was a gundam pilot. Treasure it forever. Again, don't let anyone see it or the note._

Jo took the top she was wearing off and quickly changed into her dad's top. It fit her perfectly. She put her coat on over the top to hide it from the others.

As she moved back to the others, Quatre turned and gave her a wide smile.

"what's up?" she asked

"duo's going to be fine. The doctor said that we can go in one at a time. Daemon's in there now with him." he responded.

"that's great!"

She sat back down and waited for daemon to come back out. When he did, she smiled at him then went into the room. Duo looked up at her.

"hey, if it isn't my favourite niece." he croaked, then started coughing.

"careful uncle duo!" she said.

"hey don't worry about me jo."

"why did you lie to me uncle duo?" she asked him.

He tried to smile at her, but seeing the look on her face made him decide to tell her.

"well, I didn't want you to stay with me and end up getting hurt or killed"

"didn't want me to get hurt? Not telling me hurts more than anything else duo! I've spent years being hurt by not knowing who I am and then you do this!"

A nurse came in at that moment with an irritated look aimed at Jo due to the noise the young girl was making.

"miss, I'm afraid that if you don't quiet down then I'll have to ask you to leave."

Jo glared at duo, who shifted uncomfortably, then looked at the nurse.

"I was leaving anyway" she hissed, and walked off.

She walked past the others and they all looked at her surprised. Quatre went running into duo's room to make sure she hadn't killed him, and after taking a few minutes to make sure his dad was ok, daemon went running after her.

Jo by that point had reached the main doors and had stormed out of the hospital. She tried to smooth the glare off her face but as she looked over to the shaded art, where she was sure she could see someone looking at her, the glare returned full force.

"duo's fine. By the way, next time he's in that situation, just leave him. Maybe then he'll realise how much he hurts people by pulling stunts like he did back there!" she shouted.

A few people looked at her, one couple in particular that she heard one mutter 'is she all there?' but she didn't care. She took her coat off as she had warmed up, and as she remembered that it was duo that bought it for her, she let out an angered scream before thrusting it into the nearest bin. It felt good to feel the wind blowing on her and as she sat down on the grass to catch her breath, she felt her anger dissipating with each inhale of breath.

She stood up again once her breathing had returned to normal and began to walk up the slope on the outside of the building, as she fully intended on getting on the next bus and going home to calm herself down a bit better. She had nearly reached the top of the slope when she heard Daemon call her. She turned to look at him, and blushed slightly as she saw the sun shining on his face. Even from this far away, she could see how the sunlight made his eyes sparkle and his brown hair shone, and she couldn't help but feel completely attracted to him at that moment. She gave up her idea of going home and started walking back down towards daemon, when suddenly a van pulled up in front of her, cutting her up, and two really big, burly men jumped out. Jo screamed as they grabbed her roughly and pulled her into the van. It was so fast she was unable to fight back as one of them slammed her head into the side of the van, knocking her out..

"JO!" daemon yelled in horror.

Despite the danger he knew he was about to face, his thoughts were purely on Jo as he chased after the van. Just as he reached it, someone suddenly appeared out the window, holding a gun, and fired at him. He yelled and ducked under the nearest car to him. He shakily began to move out from under it as the van sped off, but a man stepped over to him and pushed him back under it.

"what the hell…?"

"stay down!"

"but, Jo"

The man sharply looked at him, and daemon could have sworn for a brief second that it was Jo herself looking at him.

"I know you're worried, but trust me, she'll be fine"

The man took off and jumped onto a motorbike nearby, pulling off and tearing after the van. Daemon stood up again, but his legs completely gave out and he fell back to the floor with a thud.


	15. Rescue

"so, did you see what the men that took miss Yuy looked like?" the police officer asked.

Deamon shook his head. He was still white, shaking and was trying hard not to cry. He felt as though had let them take her. He wasn't strong enough to do anything.

"no, they just jumped out and took her. I tried running after then but they started firing at me. Some man threw me to safety and he went after them on his motorbike."

"any idea what your saviour looked like?"

"yeah. He looked just like Jo, except he had short brown hair instead of blonde."

The police officer put his notebook away.

"ok. That's all. Thank you."

With that, he left. Deamon sat down next to Duo, and this time, he couldn't stop the tears from flowing. He felt someone hug him, and to no surprise it was both his parents. Quatre suddenly came running into the room.

"look what I found! It's Jo's bag, but there are two letters in it. Both of them are begging her not to show any of us them because we'd know who it is!"

Duo took the letters off him and as his eyes scanned the pages, they gradually widened until they were eventually opened as wide as they could get. He then smiled.

"dad? Why are you smiling?" Deamon asked.

"don't worry son. Jo's gonna be fine."

"how do you know that?"

"because heero's going to save her."

All of them looked at duo as if he'd gone mad. He rolled his eyes before explaining to them.

"don't ask me why, but I've had this feeling for a long time that Heero wasn't really dead. Then, Jo said she saw someone at his grave the first time she left, and then I could've sworn it was Heero that saved me from the church earlier. He's alive, guys."

They all sat and stared at each other, the key thought on everyone's mind being why would Heero hide for so long? Daemon was the one who broke the silence.

"so Jo's going to be ok?" he asked.

"if heero's gone after her, then she'll be fine." duo reassured him.

Daemon turned back to look at the wall and his brows creased as he thought about what had happened. He still felt sick that he was completely powerless to help her, but he knew that most people wouldn't be able to have helped, and that eased the guilt, very, very slightly.

………………………………............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

After she had been thrown into the van, jo had been slammed against the side, being knocked out momentarily. Within minutes though, she had woken up, and felt herself having her head slammed onto something which caused her to be knocked out again. As she sunk to the floor unconscious, she heard riley's voice in the background.

"you bastard" she said to herself.

She woke up a few hours later and the first thing that she noticed was that it was dark. The second thing was that she was outside. The third thing-she was hanging above a very deep and deadly quarry and the final thing, she was freezing. She remembered that she was only wearing a tank top after throwing her coat away, and immediately regretted it, as a fierce shiver ran up her spine.

She heard someone laugh from directly behind her and she turned her body awkwardly so that she was able to face the person.

"oh good, I'm so glad that you're finally awake."

"what do you want with me, Reeve?" she yelled, her voice with a slight hint of panic.

"my dear, you are the only person who knows that I killed your beloved father and mother. I can't have you telling anybody now, can I? Well, you could join me and help me destroy the other gundam pilots. That way, you'll be allowed to live your life, but knowing that you helped destroy all you have left of your family and friends"

Jo glared at him, then gathered a bit of courage before turning to him, before she then spat at him. He wiped the liquid off his face and growled angrily at her for doing so.

"fine. If that's how you're going to behave, then we'll just have to play it your way, won't we?."

Jo watched as he reached inside his jacket pocket, and for a brief second, she thought he was about to pull a gun out on her, but sighed in relief as he just pulled out a remote. It wasn't until he raised it above her and started to press a button that she realised what he was doing, and within seconds, Jo felt herself falling. She let out a loud scream, but as she did, she also heard someone else cry out followed by the sounds of gunfire.

'great. They're gonna shoot me too.' she thought.

………………………………............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

He watched as they tied Jo's unconscious form to the pole, then moved it so that she was hanging over the ravine. He had wanted to grab her there and then but he couldn't risk being caught as that would mean the end for the pair of them. He waited for a few hours until suddenly, he saw her stir slightly, before Reeve moved over to her and said something to her. His Prussian blue eyes flashed with pride as he watched Jo as she spat in reeve's face, but the pride was replaced with panic as he then saw reeve pull the remote out of his pocket, that caused Jo to plummet to her death.

"no!" he screamed.

He revved his bike up and shot at Reeve, who ran for cover. He then shot off the edge of the quarry and reached out for Jo, just managing to grab her arm and pull her on the bike with him.

Jo closed her eyes as she heard the shooting, not really wanting to watch as the bullets tore through her, but as she felt someone grab her arm, and pull her up, she realised that it wasn't her that was being fired at. She looked up and saw someone on a bike pulling her on. She threw her legs over the saddle.

"hold on!" her saviour yelled.

She screamed again as they plummeted towards the ground, but then there was a sudden jolt and she had to grab the man in front of her even harder before she fell. The bike had landed on a ledge which ran towards a thick wood. They burst through the woods and soon they found themselves on a road but they weren't safe yet. Reeve and a group of his men were chasing after them in the van from earlier, firing at them. Jo didn't loosen her grip on the man until she heard him hissed in pain. She let go as she suddenly realised that his back was bleeding but as she loosened her gip, he overbalanced, which caused him to fall off the bike. He looked up at her as she stopped the bike.

"get the hell out of here!"

Jo watched as the van caught up with the man on the floor and pulled a gun out, aiming straight at the mans head. Before he was able to pull the trigger, there was a loud bang that came from the wounded man, reeve fell onto the floor, a pool of blood forming round him as a bullet pierced his heart.

Jo pulled the bike into a skid and raced up to the man, flipping him up onto the bike so that he was sitting behind her.

"I told you to get out of here, joanne!" he called.

She very nearly stopped as he said that but forced herself to focus on getting out of there alive. Hiow did he know who she was? Who was he? She turned the bike so that she was now facing the van agian. She smiled and turned to look back at the man and warn him.

"hold on. Tight." she said.

She felt the man hold tighter to her and she revved up the engine of the bike before screeching towards the stationary van.

"are you crazy?!" she heard one of the men yell.

Nope. She wasn't crazy. A little insane, but not crazy. Not when she could see a makeshift ramp in the side of a small hillside where the trees ended, anyway. She'd do anything to get away, even something as crazy as this.


	16. Back to the hospital

Jo threw the bike forward and it flew up the makeshift ramp. They soared over the top of riley and his goons, and Jo laughed as the back wheel hit one of the goons in the head. They landed on the road, and jo sped up, not stopping for nearly an hour. Once she was satisfied that they weren't being followed, she pulled over to the side of the road and climbed of the bike.

"ok, who the hell are you, and how do you know who I am?" she demanded.

The man slid off the bike and fell heavily onto the floor, letting out a groan of pain as he did. Jo ran over to help him but he wouldn't let her.

"let me look at your back." she said.

The man shook his head.

"come on, take the helmet off. I'm not exactly going to hurt you."

Again, the man shook his head. Jo clenched her fists together. Why was he refusing her help? It wasn't like she was going to hurt him. She tried once more, but yet again failed.

"fine. If you won't let me help, then I'll just let you get yourself to hospital. I'll hitch a ride home."

She went to stand up but he grabbed her arm. She tried to pull away, but his grip was too strong for her. She felt a slight stirring of panic inside her stomach now. The man must've seen the fear in his eyes as he looked up, and quickly let go.

"I'm not going to hurt you." he said.

Jo stepped back in shock. She knew that voice. There was no mistaking it, she heard that voice every night in her dreams, even through her amnesiac stage, so she knew she wasn't imagining it.

"dad?" she whispered, afraid that she was wrong.

The man stood up, unclipped his helmet and pulled it off, revealing a mop of brown dishevelled hair, a smooth yet hard face and a pair of deep Prussian blue eyes, identical to her own. Jo gasped and he hands flew to her mouth.

"no! you died! I watched them dump you in the side of the road! I FELT you die!!" she screamed at him, tying hard not to cry at the same time

He tried to reach out and touch Jo, but she knocked his arm away, before launching forward with her fist raised, ready to hit him. He grabbed her wrist, then grabbed the other one as she tried to hit him with it too, but she still kept trying to hit him and prove that he wasn't real. She tried to fight it, but eventually, her attacks grew weaker as her tears finally spilled down her cheeks.

Heero saw the pain and confusion in her eyes. Then, as her actions stilled and she began to cry, he wrapped his arms around her. For the first time in seven years, he could finally hold his daughter and for the first time in seven years, she was able to cry as hard as she had ever done in her life, in the arms of her dad, who she believed to be dead. She sobbed so hard, her whole body shook. Heero kept her tucked into his arms and just stood there holding her, all the while trying to hold his own emotions in place while at the same time wanting nothing more than to cry for the first time since his childhood years.

Little did they know, someone was hiding in the bush behind them, glaring at them as he saw the display of affection as the father and daughter reunited with each other. He silently stepped out and pointed his gun towards Heero, who's his back was facing the bush. Jo opened her eyes and glanced over heero's shoulder as she thought she heard a noise, and she screamed as she saw both Riley who had caught up with them, and then noticed the gun he held in his hand, pointed at her dad.

"NO!!" she yelled.

She flung herself in front of Heero so that he was shielded, just as riley fired the gun. Both Jo and Heero cried out as the bullet went straight into her stomach, and came out the back of her, also hitting Heero in the side, his second bullet wound he had received that day. He ignored it as he felt Jo's weight on him as she fell against him and passed out. Riley ran away, laughing cruelly and harshly. Heero threw jo onto the bike so that she was leaning against his chest and raced towards the hospital, hoping and praying that he wasn't going to be too late to save her.

………………………………............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Back at the hospital, Duo had managed to persuade the nurse to let him come out of his room and stand outside for some fresh air with the others. He was just as worried as everyone else for Jo's life, yet something inside of him told him that she would be safe. That feeling vanished however as Trowa suddenly groaned quietly and rubbed his stomach. Even though they were not blood relatives, Jo and Trowa had always shared a strong bond and whenever one of them was seriously wounded, the other would feel it.

Just as duo realised something had happened to Jo, they heard someone shout from the emergency room.

"somebody help me! My daughter's been shot!"

The group all looked at each other and raced towards the source of the yell, as at the exact same second, they just knew who it was. Just before they reached the accident and emergency, a trolley came through the doors with a young girl on it. All of them stood in shock as they realised who it was.

"Jo!" duo yelled.

Quatre sank to his knees, and Trowa bent down to help him up. Everyone went white with shock. One of the nurses turned to duo as he called out.

"are you the man who brought her in?" she asked.

Another nurse answered her before duo had chance to respond.

"no, he's in one of the cubicles. He's also been sot but it's only a minor wound. He's the girl's father."

Duo turned and ran into the A and E telling the others to stay back for a few minutes. A nurse looked up at him with a look of annoyance as he burst in, but he ignored her.

"where's heero yuy?" he asked.

He heard a curtain open from behind him, but ignored it until a deep yet gentle voice responded.

"he's right here."

Duo turned round and faced heero. He was soaked in blood and he was as white as snow. His whole body was trembling and Duo could see the tears shining in his eyes.

Duo had never seen heero like this before. He stepped forward and gently wrapped his arms around heero and heero burst out crying, sinking to the floor as his legs could no longer hold him.

'oh, man, heero yuy, crying?' duo thought.

The others came in and saw the pair of them on the floor. Quatre guided them to a chair, heero still crying and duo still holding him. Wufei went to get a blanket and Trowa went to get a hot drink for him. Daemon stood back, wanting to comfort the man, but at the same time struggling to hold himself together as he couldn't shift the image of his best friend being carted off on a stretcher out of his mind.

Heero looked at all his friends after he had stopped crying. His face was stained with dry tears, mud and blood and he was in a mess, still shaking.

"some kid was going to shoot me. She turned me and used herself as a shield. I couldn't do anything, I…I…I failed. I've watched over her for seven years and then the one time she does need me, I f…f..failed. I couldn't save relena and it's happening again to my d…daughter"

Duo looked up at that point as Trowa nudged him and motioned for him to look up. His eyes widened as he saw daemon standing with his back to them all, shaking with the effort of not crying. Duo stood up and Heero watched quietly as duo pulled his son into a hug, and daemon finally allowed himself to break down.

Quatre stood up and excused himself from them all, telling them that he was going to ring Milliardo and Lucrezia. They needed to know, they needed to be here.


	17. Admitted Feelings

Milliardo marched into the hospital, just about ready to kill heero, but when he saw him, he stopped. Instead, he walked over to him and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

"How are you?"

Heero's voice sounded even more detached than usual as he answered.

"My daughter's fighting for her life, and you're asking how I am?"

"True. Touché."

He moved away and Lucrezia came over, giving him a very small one-armed hug.

"Just remember to stay strong. She's going to need you when she wakes up, and it wouldn't be very good if you were all zombie like, would it?"

Heero's lip twitched at that, but a second later, it disappeared to be replaced with his frozen, emotionless mask.

Heero refused to cry anymore. He knew he had to stay strong, and by god, he was going to do that, even if it killed him. However, he couldn't help but think that if Jo didn't make it, he would be alone, as he would have lost both his wife and his only child. Duo watched Heero's mask slip into place and sighed slightly. It wasn't healthy for him to be like that. Yes he had to stay calm, but not by going into perfect soldier mode.

"Heero. Don't become pilot 01 again please" he said.

Heero turned to look at his best friend, a look of confusion on his face as he processed what dup had just said.

"01? He died a long time ago"

It was then that Duo realised that Heero wasn't slipping into the perfect soldier, he was slipping into worried father but not knowing what to do with it mode. In other words, Heero Yuy was scared shitless over the prospect of losing his child.

As he sat thinking about that, he felt a heavy weight on his shoulder and when he looked down; he saw that Hilde and Helen had both fallen asleep. Nobody had gone home as Jo was family to all of them and they wanted to make sure she would be ok. Deciding he couldn't do anything else, Duo rested his head on top of his wife's and also fell asleep.

A few hours later, everyone was asleep with the exception of Heero and daemon, but Heero noticed that daemon looked like he was about to pass out with fatigue.

"Try to sleep." Heero said.

"No, not until I know if Jo's going to make it out alive."

"You love her."

Daemon didn't answer, but instead turned his head to glare down at the floor in worry, confirming Heero's suggestion.

Heero himself was in the same situation as Daemon. He couldn't relax knowing that his daughter was being operated on at that moment. Instead, he spent his time staring at the clock on the wall in front of him as the minutes ticked by at an antagonising slow pace.

A while later, Quatre woke up, and the first thing he saw was that Daemon looked ready to drop, and that Heero was sitting motionlessly, his eyes never straying from the clock. He looked up at the clock too and saw that it had been five hours since he had fallen asleep, which obviously meant that Jo still hadn't come out of theatre just yet. He got up, stretched and went over to heero, then sat next to him.

"No news, huh?" he asked.

Heero shook his head, then tore his eyes away from the clock to look at Daemon, who had finally just a few seconds ago closed his eyes and was asleep already, completely exhausted. He couldn't help but think that if Jo were to make it out of this, Daemon would be the best person for her. He was so lost in his thoughts; he didn't hear the doctor speak until Quatre stood up to greet him.

Heero's head sprung up and the doctor smiled at him. Daemon heard Heero stand up, and cracked his eyes open, also springing up as he saw the doctor standing there.

"Wassamata? Is jo ok?" he asked, then yawned.

Heero looked over at him, then looked back at the doctor hopefully.

"Jo will be just fine. We nearly lost her three times but I'm telling you know, that's one hell of a strong daughter you have there. Most girls her age would have gone after the first time, but she just refused to give up. How old is she?" he asked.

Quatre answered, because Heero was too busy staring into space, and Daemon was whooping with happiness, succeeding in waking up a group of very disgruntled men and women.

"She's seventeen." he said.

"remarkable." the doctor said.

He waited until everyone else had woken up, then he got them to follow him to Jo's room. He stopped outside the door.

"Now, remember, she's just been through major surgery, so only two at a time and try not to excite her too much."

No one needed to say anything about who would go in first. Heero opened

The door and went in. Jo had a drip in her arm and had an oxygen tube in her nose. At that moment, she was sleeping, but when Heero shut the door behind him, she woke up and smiled at him tiredly.

"Hey. Sorry I scared you, dad." she said.

Heero moved over to her, and she raised an eyebrow at the serious expression in his face as he checked her all over to assess the damage.

"My status is stable. One serious injury sustained along with multiple lacerations, mostly minor" she said in a serious voice then saluted him.

"Huh?"

She smiled up at him then and laughed slightly before wincing as it stung.

"I was trying to snap you out of it. You looked all military-like then, not like a dad. So, are you going to give me the whole being stupid for saving your ass lecture now?"

Heero frowned slightly, but smiled at the sparkle in her eyes. Even though she had been put through so much, she still managed to keep her humour, just like Duo used to do.

"I'm not going to lecture over it. I'll leave that to your uncle."

Jo's eyes widened at that, and she grimaced as she thought about the lecture she would receive from him.

"Is he here?"

"Yes."

She groaned and her head dropped onto her pillow in defeat.

"All I will tell you is that what you did was reckless, but I owe you my life"

"Just do one thing for me."

"What?"

"Come here."

The first thing she did to him was slap him across the face. As his eyes widened in surprise, she pulled him to her and wrapped her arms round him as best as she could.

"Never leave me again, ok daddy?"

Hearing her call him daddy after so many years made Heero return her embrace. He had missed her so much, and he realised now that even though he had been protecting her, he was hurting her more than he could have imagined by being away.

"I'll never leave again Joanne. I promise."

"Thanks. Now, who else is here to see me?"

Heero went through the list, deliberately leaving Daemon's name until the end as he wanted to see her reaction.

"Daemon? Please dad, I have to speak to him!"

She tried to sit up, but Heero carefully yet firmly forced her to lie back down, before leaving the room and holding it so that Daemon could squeeze in.

Daemon didn't speak for a few minutes, and just gazed at the floor. Jo looked carefully at him, and suddenly noticed that the reason that he wasn't looking at her was because he was trying to not cry.

"Daemon, what's wrong?"

"Jo, it's my fault. If I had of come out of the hospital with you then this wouldn't have happened. If I was stronger I could've reached you before that van pulled away I was so scared that I lost you.."

"Daemon, you are strong, even if you were as strong as my dad, you probably still wouldn't have been able to catch the van. And you didn't lose me so everything's alright."

He looked up at her then, his expression unfathomable.

"It's not alright yet."

Before Jo could ask him what he meant, he leant forward and gently pressed his lips against hers. She returned the kiss before he pulled away and smiled at her

"I love you, Joanne Yuy."

Jo smiled warmly at him.

"I love you too, Daemon Maxwell."

Daemon sat on the bed next to her and held her hand as the rest of the family came in to see her.

Milliardo looked like he was about to give her his lecture, but a sharp look and nudge in the ribs from his wife stopped him, and instead, he settled for giving her a hug. Lucrezia kissed the top of her head softly as well as hugging her.

"Maxy says to send his love. Jurei, wells, you know him"

"Thanks aunt Lu. Tell Maxy I send my love back and please tell Jurei to shove a pineapple up his ass, with all due respect."

Lucrezia laughed again before hugging her and moving out of the room.

Once everyone had been to see her, and Daemon was alone with her again, he moved to kiss her once more. They were so absorbed in what they were doing, they didn't even notice Heero walk in until he coughed to get their attention. They pulled apart, the pair of them blushing slightly.

"I just wanted to say to Daemon that Duo has said he's taking your mother and sister home and will pick you up in the morning. Your mother says to get some sleep as you look like hell. Also, I want to thank you for saving my daughter's life. If it wasn't for you spying on her she'd be dead now. Oh, and I give you my blessing."

He walked back out of the room, and Daemon and Jo looked at each other. They simultaneously grinned at each other before moving to kiss each other again, before Daemon finally passed out and Jo found herself laughing as he started snoring less than five seconds after falling asleep as he had been so tired.

Heero watched the pair with a faint smile on his face. She was ok, and he had been reunited with her. Maybe now they could both finally start moving forward with their lives.


End file.
